.953 

2-72 


p 


OEMS  OF  THE  PAST 
AND    THE    PRESENT 


BY 


THOMAS    HARDY 


SECOND    EDITION 


NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 
HARPER    &f    BROTHERS 

FRANKLIN    SQUARE 
MDCCCCII 


^4  //  rights  reserved 


PREFACE 

HEREWITH  I  tender  my  thanks  to  the 
editors  and  proprietors  of  the  Times, 
the  Morning  Post,  the  Daily  Chronicle,  the 
Westminster  Gazette,  Literature,  the  Graphic, 
Cornhill,  Sphere,  and  other  papers,  for  per- 
mission to  reprint  from  their  pages  such  of 
the  following  pieces  of  verse  as  have  already 
been  published. 

Of  the  subject-matter  of  this  volume  which 
is    in    other    than    narrative    form,   much    is 

dramatic   or  impersonative   even    where    not 

b 


1*-  .—•  I-*  \  o  >»-* 
.55737 


VI  PREFACE 

explicitly  so.  Moreover,  that  portion  which 
may  be  regarded  as  individual  comprises  a 
series  of  feelings  and  fancies  written  down 
in  widely  differing  moods  and  circumstances, 
and  at  various  dates.  It  will  probably  be 
found,  therefore,  to  possess  little  cohesion  of 
thought  or  harmony  of  colouring.  I  do  not 
greatly  regret  this.  Unadjusted  impressions 
have  their  value,  and  the  road  to  a  true 
philosophy  of  life  seems  to  lie  in  humbly 
recording  diverse  readings  of  its  phenomena 
as  they  are  forced  upon  us  by  chance  and 
change. 

T.  H. 

August  1901. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


V.R.  1819-1901       .  i 

WAR   POEMS— 

EMBARCATION 5 

DEPARTURE 7 

THE  COLONEL'S  SOLILOQUY         ...  9 

THE  GOING  OF  THE  BATTERY     .       .       .  12 

AT  THE  WAR  OFFICE 15 

A  CHRISTMAS  GHOST-STORY        .       .        .  17 

THE  DEAD  DRUMMER 19 

A  WIFE  IN  LONDON 21 

THE  SOULS  OF  THE  SLAIN  ....  23 

SONG  OF  THE  SOLDIERS'  WIVES  ...  30 

THE  SICK  GOD 33 


Vlll  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

POEMS  OF  PILGRIMAGE- 
GENOA  AND  THE  MEDITERRANEAN     .       .  39 

SHELLEY'S  SKYLARK 42 

IN  THE  OLD  THEATRE,  FIESOLE        .       .  44 

ROME  :  ON  THE  PALATINE  ....  46 
„        BUILDING  A  NEW  STREET  IN  THE 

ANCIENT  QUARTER  ...  48 
„        THE     VATICAN  :     SALA      DELLE 

MUSE 50 

„       AT  THE  PYRAMID  OF  CESTIUS       .  53 

LAUSANNE  :  IN  GIBBON'S  OLD  GARDEN     .  56 

ZERMATT  :  To  THE  MATTERHORN       .       .  58 

THE  BRIDGE  OF  LODI 60 

ON  AN  INVITATION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES  65 

MISCELLANEOUS   POEMS— 

THE  MOTHER  MOURNS        ....  69 

N&I  SAID  TO  LOVE" 75 

A  COMMONPLACE  DAY 77 

AT  A  LUNAR  ECLIPSE 80 

THE  LACKING  SENSE 82 

To  LIFE 86 

DOOM  AND  SHE .  88 

THE  PROBLEM 91 

THE  SUBALTERNS 93 

THE  SLEEP-WORKER      .....  95 

THE  BULLFINCHES                       ...  97 


CONTENTS  IX 

PAGE 

GOD-FORGOTTEN    .       .       .              .       .  99 
THE    BEDRIDDEN    PEASANT   TO   AN    UN- 
KNOWING GOD 103 

BY  THE  EARTH'S  CORPSE  106 

;    MUTE  OPINION 109 

*>To  AN  UNBORN  PAUPER  CHILD  .       .       .  1 1 1 

To  FLOWERS  FROM  ITALY  IN  WINTER      .  114 

r  ON  A  FINE  MORNING 116 

To  LIZBIE  BROWNE      .       .       .       .       .118 

SONG  OF  HOPE 122 

THE  WELL-BELOVED 124 

HER  REPROACH 128 

THE  INCONSISTENT 130 

'    A  BROKEN  APPOINTMENT    .       .       .       .132 

/  "BETWEEN  us  NOW" 134 

-f-i'HOW  GREAT  MY   GRIEF"     ....         136 

NEED  NOT  GO"  .  .  .  .  .137 
THE  COQUETTE,  AND  AFTER  .  .  -139 
A  SPOT  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .141 

LONG  PLIGHTED 143 

THE  WIDOW 145 

AT  A  HASTY  WEDDING  ....  148 
THE  DREAM-FOLLOWER  .  .  .  .149 
His  IMMORTALITY 150 

THE  TO-BE-FORGOTTEN  .  .  .  .152 

WIVES  IN  THE  SERE 155 

THE  SUPERSEDED.  .       .       .       .157 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

AN  AUGUST  MIDNIGHT  .  .  .  .159 
THE  CAGED  THRUSH  FREED  AND  HOME 

AGAIN 161 

BIRDS  AT  WINTER  NIGHTFALL    .       .        .163 
THE  PUZZLED  GAME-BIRDS  .       .       .        .164 
0  *  WINTER  IN  DURNOVER  FIELD    .       .        .165 

THE  LAST  CHRYSANTHEMUM  .  .  .167 
THE  DARKLING  THRUSH  ....  169 
THE  COMET  AT  YALBURY  OR  YELL'HAM  .  172 

^ — MAD  JUDY      . 173 

A  WASTED  ILLNESS      .        .    r  .        .  175 

A  MAN 178 

THE  DAME  OF  ATHELHALL  .  .  .  .182 
THE  SEASONS  OF  HER  YEAR  .  .  .186 

THE  MILKMAID 188 

.    THE  LEVELLED  CHURCHYARD     .       .       .190 

\THE  RUINED  MAID 192 

THE    RESPECTABLE    BURGHER    ON    "THE 

HIGHER  CRITICISM"      .  195 

ARCHITECTURAL  MASKS       .       .       .       .      198 

THE  TENANT-FOR-LIFE        ....      200 

*-~^lTHE  KING'S  EXPERIMENT    .       .       .        .202 

THE  TREE  :  AN  OLD  MAN'S  STORY   .        .      205 

HER  LATE  HUSBAND 209 

Q  THE  SELF-UNSEEING    .  .211 

DE  PROFUNDIS     1 213 

II.  .       .       .      215 


CONTENTS  XI 

PAGE 

DE  PROFUNDIS  III 218 

THE  CHURCH-BUILDER        .       .       .       .221 

THE  LOST  PYX  :  A  MEDIAEVAL  LEGEND    .  227 

TESS'S  LAMENT 232 

THE  SUPPLANTER:  A  TALE        .        .        .  235 

IMITATIONS,  &c.— 

SAPPHIC  FRAGMENT 243 

CATULLUS  :  xxxi 244 

AFTER  SCHILLER 246 

SONG  :  FROM  HEINE 247 

FROM  VICTOR  HUGO 249 

CARDINAL  BEMBO'S  EPITAPH  ON  RAPHAEL  250 

RETROSPECT— 

"  I  HAVE  LIVED  WITH  SHADES  "  .        .       .  253 

MEMORY  AND  I 256 

GEOt 259 


V.R.  1819-1901 

A  REVERIE 

MOMENTS  the  mightiest  pass  uncalen- 
dared, 

And  when  the  Absolute 
In  backward  Time  outgave  the  deedful 

word 

Whereby  all  life  is  stirred  : 
"  Let  one  be  born  and  throned  whose  mould 

shall  constitute 

The  norm  of  every  royal-reckoned  attribute/' 
No  mortal  knew  or  heard. 


OF 


(  I   UNIVERSITY 

U\      -         OF 

<%bPXUrni.. 


2  A    REVERIE 

But  in  due  days  the  purposed  Life  out- 
shone— 

Serene,  sagacious,  free  ; 
— Her  waxing  seasons  bloomed  with  deeds 

well  done, 

And  the  world's  heart  was  won  .  .  . 
Yet  may  the  deed  of  hers  most  bright  in  eyes 

to  be 
Lie  hid  from  ours — as  in  the  All-One's  thought 

lay  she — 
Till  ripening  years  have  run. 

SUNDAY  NIGHT, 

2.1th  January  1901. 


WAR  POEMS 


EMBARCATION 

(Southampton  Docks:  October,  1899) 

HERE,  where  Vespasian's  legions  struck 
the  sands, 

And  Cerdic  with  his  Saxons  entered  in, 
And  Henry's  army  leapt  afloat  to  win 
Convincing  triumphs  over  neighbour  lands, 

Vaster  battalions  press  for  further  strands, 
To  argue  in  the  self-same  bloody  mode 
Which  this  late  age  of  thought,  and  pact,  and 

code, 
Still  fails  to  mend. — Now  deckward  tramp  the 

bands, 


6  EMBARCATION 

Yellow  as  autumn  leaves,  alive  as  spring  ; 
And  as  each  host  draws  out  upon  the  sea 
Beyond  which  lies  the  tragical  To-be, 
None  dubious  of  the  cause,  none  murmuring, 

Wives,  sisters,  parents,  wave  white  hands  and 

smile, 
As  if  they  knew  not  that  they  weep  the  while. 


DEPARTURE 

(Southampton  Docks:  October,  1899) 

WHILE  the  far  farewell  music  thins  and 
fails, 
And    the    broad    bottoms    rip    the    bearing 

brine — 

All  smalling  slowly  to  the  gray  sea  line — 
And  each  significant  red  smoke-shaft  pales, 

Keen  sense  of  severance  everywhere  prevails, 
Which  shapes  the  late  long  tramp  of  mounting 

men 

To  seeming  words  that  ask  and  ask  again : 
"  How  long,  O  striving  Teutons,   Slavs,  and 

Gaels 


8  DEPARTURE 

Must  your  wroth  reasonings  trade  on  lives  like 

these, 

That  are  as  puppets  in  a  playing  hand  ? — 
When  shall  the  saner  softer  polities 
Whereof  we  dream,  have  play  in  each  proud 

land, 
And    patriotism,    grown     Godlike,    scorn     to 

stand 
Bondslave    to    realms,   but  circle    earth   and 

seas?" 


THE  COLONEL'S  SOLILOQUY 

(Southampton  Docks  :   October,  1899) 


«F'j  *HE  quay  recedes.  Hurrah  !   Ahead  we 

1  go  !  ... 

It's  true  I've  been  accustomed  now  to  home, 
And  joints   get  rusty,   and  one's  limbs  may 
grow 

More  fit  to  rest  than  roam. 

"  But  I  can  stand  as  yet  fair  stress  and  strain  ; 
There's  not  a  little  steel  beneath  the  rust  ; 
My  years   mount  somewhat,  but  here's  to  't 
again  ! 
;     And  if  I  fall,  I  must. 

9 


IO  THE    COLONEL  S    SOLILOQUY 

"  God  knows  that  for  myself  I've  scanty  care  ; 
Past  scrimmages  have  proved  as  much  to  all ; 
In    Eastern   lands   and   South    I've    had    my 
share 

Both  of  the  blade  and  ball. 

"And  where  those  villains  ripped  me  in  the 

flitch 

With  their  old  iron  in  my  early  time, 
I'm  apt  at  change  of  wind  to  feel  a  twitch, 
Or  at  a  change  of  clime. 

"  And    what    my   mirror    shows    me    in    the 

morning 
Has   more   of    blotch    and    wrinkle    than   of 

bloom  ; 

My  eyes,  too,  heretofore  all  glasses  scorning, 
Have  just  a  touch  of  rheum.  .  .  . 

"Now  sounds  'The  Girl  I've  left  behind  me/ 

-Ah, 

The  years,  the  ardours,  wakened  by  that  tune  ! 
Time   was   when,  with  the   crowd's  farewell 

'  Hurrah  ! ' 

Twould  lift  me  to  the  moon. 


THE  COLONEL'S  SOLILOQUY  n 

"  But  now  it's  late  to  leave  behind  me  one 
Who  if,  poor  soul;  her  man  goes  underground, 
Will  not  recover  as  she  might  have  done 
In  days  when  hopes  abound. 

"  She's  waving    from    the    wharfside,   palely 

grieving, 
As  down  we  draw.  ...  Her  tears  make  little 

show, 

Yet  now  she  suffers  more  than  at  my  leaving 
Some  twenty  years  ago. 

"  I  pray  those  left  at  home  will  care  for  her  ! 

I  shall  come  back ;    I  have  before  ;   though 
when 

The  Girl  you  leave  behind  you  is  a  grand- 
mother, 

Things  may  not  be  as  then." 


THE   GOING   OF   THE   BATTERY 

WIVES'       LAMENT 


(November  2,  1899) 


OIT    was    sad   enough,  weak  enough, 
mad  enough — 

Light  in  their  loving  as  soldiers  can  be — 
First  to  risk  choosing  them,  leave  alone  losing 

them 
Now,  in  far  battle,  beyond  the  South  Sea  !  .  .  . 


THE    GOING    OF    THE    BATTERY  13 

II 

— Rain  came  down  drenchingly ;  but  we  un- 

blenchingly 
Trudged  on  beside  them  through  mirk  and 

through  mire, 

They  stepping  steadily — only  too  readily  ! — 
Scarce   as   if    stepping    brought  parting-time 

nigher. 

in 

Great  guns  were  gleaming  there,  living  things 

seeming  there, 
Cloaked  in  their  tar-cloths,  upmouthed  to  the 

night ; 

Wheels  wet  and  yellow  from  axle  to  felloe, 
Throats  blank  of  sound,  but  prophetic  to  sight. 

IV 

Gas-glimmers  drearily,  blearily,  eerily 

Lit  our  pale  faces  outstretched  for  one  kiss, 

While  we  stood   prest  to  them,  with  a   last 

quest  to  them 
Not  to  court  perils  that  honour  could  miss. 


14  THE    GOING    OF    THE    BATTERY 

V 

Sharp  were  those  sighs  of  ours,  blinded  these 

eyes  of  ours, 

When  at  last  moved  away  under  the  arch 
All  we   loved.      Aid  for   them    each  woman 

prayed  for  them, 
Treading  back  slowly  the  track  of  their  march. 

VI 

Someone  said  :  "  Nevermore  will  they  come  : 

evermore 

Are  they  now  lost  to  us."     O  it  was  wrong  ! 
Though  may  be  hard  their  ways,  some  Hand 

will  guard  their  ways, 
Bear  them  through  safely,  in  brief  time  or  long. 

VII 

— Yet,  voices  haunting  us,  daunting  us,  taunt- 
ing us, 

Hint  in  the  night-time  when  life  beats  are  low 

Other  and  graver  things  .  .  .  Hold  we  to 
braver  things, 

Wait  we,  in  trust,  what  Time's  fulness  shall 
show. 


AT  THE  WAR  OFFICE,  LONDON 

(Affixing  the  Lists  of  Killed  and  Wounded: 
December,  1899) 


LAST  year   I   called  this   world  of  gain- 
givings 
The    darkest    thinkable,    and   questioned 

sadly 
If  my   own  land  could  heave  its  pulse  less 

gladly, 

So    charged    it    seemed    with    circumstance 
whence  springs 

The  tragedy  of  things. 

is 


l6  AT    THE    WAR    OFFICE,    LONDON 

II 

Yet  at  that  censured  time  no  heart  was  rent 
Or    feature    blanched    of    parent,    wife,    or 

daughter 

By  hourly  blazoned  sheets  of  listed  slaughter  ; 
Death   waited   Nature's  wont ;    Peace  smiled 

unshent 

From  Ind  to  Occident. 


A  CHRISTMAS  GHOST-STORY 

SOUTH    of    the    Line,    inland    from    far 
Durban, 

A  mouldering  soldier  lies — your  countryman. 
Awry  and  doubled  up  are  his  gray  bones, 
And    on    the    breeze    his    puzzled    phantom 

moans 

Nightly  to  clear  Canopus  :  "  I  would  know 
By  whom  and  when  the  All-Earth-gladdening 

Law 
Of  Peace,  brought  in  by  that  Man  Crucified, 

Was  ruled  to  be  inept,  and  set  aside  ? 
17  B 


1 8  A    CHRISTMAS    GHOST-STORY 

And  what  of  logic  or  of  truth  appears 
In  tacking  '  Anno  Domini '  to  the  years  ? 
Near  twenty-hundred  liveried  thus  have  hied, 
But  tarries  yet  the  Cause  for  which  He  died." 

Christmas-eve^  1899. 


THE  DEAD  DRUMMER 

i 

THEY  throw  in  Drummer  Hodge,  to 
rest 

Uncoffined — just  as  found  : 
His  landmark  is  a  kopje-crest 

That  breaks  the  veldt  around  ; 
And  foreign  constellations  west 
Each  night  above  his  mound. 


2O  THE    DEAD    DRUMMER 

II 

Young  Hodge  the  Drummer  never  knew- 
Fresh  from  his  Wessex  home — 

The  meaning  of  the  broad  Karoo, 
The  Bush,  the  dusty  loam, 

And  why  uprose  to  nightly  view 
Strange  stars  amid  the  gloam. 

in 

i 

Yet  portion  of  that  unknown  plain 

Will  Hodge  for  ever  be ; 
His  homely  Northern  breast  and  brain 

Grow  up  a  Southern  tree, 
And  strange-eyed  constellations  reign 

His  stars  eternally. 


A  WIFE  IN  LONDON 

(December,  1899) 

I 
THE   TRAGEDY 

SHE  sits  in  the  tawny  vapour 
That  the  City  lanes  have  uprolled, 
Behind  whose  webby  fold  on  fold 
Like  a  waning  taper 

The  street-lamp  glimmers  cold. 

A  messenger's  knock  cracks  smartly, 
Flashed  news  is  in  her  hand 
Of  meaning  it  dazes  to  understand 


22  A    WIFE    IN    LONDON 

Though  shaped  so  shortly  : 

He  —  has  fallen  —  in   the  far  South 
Land.  . 


II 

THE   IRONY 

Tis  the  morrow  ;  the  fog  hangs  thicker, 
The  postman  nears  and  goes  : 
A  letter  is  brought  whose  lines  dis- 
close 
By  the  firelight  flicker 

His  hand,  whom  the  worm  now  knows  : 

Fresh — firm— penned  in  highest  feather — 
Page-full  of  his  hoped  return, 
And  of  home-planned  jaunts  by  brake 
and  burn 

In  the  summer  weather, 

And  of  new  love  that  they  would  learn. 


THE  SOULS  OF  THE  SLAIN 

i 

THE  thick  lids  of  Night  closed  upon  me 
Alone  at  the  Bill 
Of  the  Isle  by  the  Race  *— 
Many-caverned,  bald,  wrinkled  of  face — 
And  with  darkness  and  silence  the  spirit  was 

on  me 
To  brood  and  be  still. 


*  The  "  Race  "  is  the  turbulent  sea-area  off  the  Bill  of  Port- 
nd,  where  contrary  tides  meet. 
23 


24  THE    SOULS    OF    THE    SLAIN 

II 

No  wind  fanned  the  flats  of  the  ocean, 
Or  promontory  sides, 
Or  the  ooze  by  the  strand, 

Or  the  bent-bearded  slope  of  the  land, 
Whose  base  took  its  rest  amid  everlong  motion 
Of  criss-crossing  tides. 

in 

Soon  from  out  of  the  Southward  seemed 

nearing 

A  whirr,  as  of  wings 
Waved  by  mighty-vanned  flies, 
Or  by  night-moths  of  measureless  size, 
And   in   softness    and    smoothness    well-nigh 

beyond  hearing 
Of  corporal  things. 

IV 

And  they  bore  to  the  bluff,  and  alighted — 

A  dim-discerned  train 

Of  sprites  without  mould, 
Frameless   souls   none    might    touch    or 
might  hold — 


THE    SOULS    OF    THE    SLAIN  25 

On  the  ledge   by  the   turreted   lantern,  far- 
sighted 
By  men  of  the  main. 


And  I  heard  them  say  "  Home  ! "  and  I 

knew  them 

For  souls  of  the  felled 
On  the  earth's  nether  bord 
Under  Capricorn,  whither  they'd  warred, 
And  I  neared  in  my  awe,  and  gave  heedfulness 

to  them 
With  breathings  inheld. 

VI 

Then,  it  seemed,  there  approached  from 

the  northward 
A  senior  soul-flame 
Of  the  like  filmy  hue  : 
And  he  met  them  and  spake  :  "  Is  it  you, 
O  my  men  ?  "     Said  they,    "  Aye  !     We  bear 

homeward  and  hearthward 
To  list  to  our  fame  ! " 


26  THE    SOULS    OF    THE    SLAIN 

VII 

"  I've  flown  there   before  you/'  he   said 

then  : 
"  Your  households  are  well ; 

But — your  kin  linger  less 
On  your  glory  and  war-mightiness 
Than   on   dearer   things." — "  Dearer  ?  "   cried 

these  from  the  dead  then, 
"  Of  what  do  they  tell  ?  " 

VIII 

"Some  mothers  muse  sadly,  and  murmur 
Your  doings  as  boys — 
Recall  the  quaint  ways 
Of  your  babyhood's  innocent  days. 
Some   pray  that,  ere   dying,  your  faith  had 

grown  firmer, 
And  higher  your  joys. 

IX 

"  A  father  broods  :  f  Would  I  had  set  him 
To  some  humble  trade, 
And  so  slacked  his  high  fire, 
And  his  passionate  martial  desire  ; 


THE    SOULS    OF    THE    SLAIN  2J 

Had  told  him  no  stories  to  woo  him  and  whet 

him 
To  this  dire  crusade  ! " 


"And,  General,  how  hold  out  our  sweet- 
hearts, 

Sworn  loyal  as  doves  ?  " 
— "  Many  mourn  ;  many  think 
It  is  not  unattractive  to  prink 
Them  in  sables  for  heroes.     Some  fickle  and 

fleet  hearts 
Have  found  them  new  loves." 

XI 

"  And    our    wives  ? "    quoth   another   re- 
signedly, ^ 
"  Dwell  they  on  our  deeds  ?  " 
— "  Deeds  of  home  ;  that  live  yet 
Fresh  as  new — deeds  of  fondness  or  fret ; 
Ancient  words  that  were  kindly  expressed  or 

unkindly, 
These,  these  have  their  heeds." 


28  THE    SOULS    OF    THE    SLAIN 

XII 

— "  Alas  !  then  it  seems  that  our  glory 

Weighs  less  in  their  thought 

Than  our  old  homely  acts, 

And  the  long-ago  commonplace  facts 

Of  our  lives — held  by  us  as  scarce  part  of  our 

story, 
And  rated  as  nought !  " 

XIII 

Then  bitterly  some  :  "  Was  it  wise  now 
To  raise  the  tomb-door 
For  such  knowledge  ?     Away  ! " 
But  the  rest :  "  Fame  we  prized  till  to-day ; 
Yet  that  hearts  keep  us  green  for  old  kindness 

we  prize  now 
A  thousand  times  more  ! " 

XIV 

Thus  speaking,  the  trooped  apparitions 

Began  to  disband 

And  resolve  them  in  two  : 
Those  whose  record  was  lovely  and  true 


THE    SOULS    OF    THE    SLAIN  29 

Bore  to  northward  for  home  :  those  of  bitter 

traditions 
Again  left  the  land, 

xv 

And,  towering  to  seaward  in  legions, 
They  paused  at  a  spot 
Overbending  the  Race — 
That  engulphing,  ghast,  sinister  place — 
Whither  headlong  they  plunged,  to  the  fathom- 
less regions 
Of  myriads  forgot. 

XVI 

And  the  spirits  of  those  who  were  homing 
Passed  on,  rushingly, 
Like  the  Pentecost  Wind  ; 
And  the  whirr  of  their  wayfaring  thinned 
And  surceased  on  the  sky,  and  but  left  in  the 

gloaming 
Sea-mutterings  and  me. 

December  1899. 


or 


SONG  OF  THE  SOLDIERS'  WIVES 


A  last !     In  sight  of  home  again, 
Of  home  again ; 
No  more  to  range  and  roam  again 

As  at  that  bygone  time  ? 
No  more  to  go  away  from  us 

And  stay  from  us  ? — 
Dawn,  hold  not  long  the  day  from  us, 
But  quicken  it  to  prime  ! 

3° 


SONG    OF    THE    SOLDIERS     WIVES  3! 


II 


Now  all  the  town  shall  ring  to  them, 

Shall  ring  to  them, 
And  we  who  love  them  cling  to  them 

And  clasp  them  joyfully  ; 
And  cry,  "  O  much  we'll  do  for  you 

Anew  for  you, 

Dear  Loves  ! — aye,  draw  and  hew  for  you, 
Come  back  from  oversea." 


in 


Some  told  us  we  should  meet  no  more, 

Should  meet  no  more  ; 
Should  wait,  and  wish,  but  greet  no  more 

Your  faces  round  our  fires  ; 
That,  in  a  while,  uncharily 

And  drearily 

Men  gave  their  lives — even  wearily, 
Like  those  whom  living  tires. 


32  SONG    OF    THE    SOLDIERS'    WIVES 


IV 


And  now  you  are  nearing  home  again, 

Dears,  home  again  ; 
No  more,  may  be,  to  roam  again 

As  at  that  bygone  time, 
Which  took  you  far  away  from  us 

To  stay  from  us  ; 
Dawn,  hold  not  long  the  day  from  us, 

But  quicken  it  to  prime  ! 


THE   SICK   GOD 


IN  days  when  men  had  joy  of  war, 
A  God  of  Battles  sped  each  mortal 

jar; 

The  peoples  pledged  him  heart  and  hand, 
From  Israel's  land  to  isles  afar. 

ii 

His  crimson  form,  with  clang  and  chime, 
Flashed  on  each  murk  and  murderous  meet- 
ing-time, 

33  r 


34  THE    SICK    GOD 

And  kings  invoked,  for  rape  and  raid, 
His  fearsome  aid  in  rune  and  rhyme. 

in 

On    bruise    and    blood -hole,    scar    and 

seam, 

On  blade  and  bolt,  he  flung  his  fulgid  beam  : 
His  haloes  rayed  the  very  gore, 
And  corpses  wore  his  glory-gleam. 

IV 

Often  an  early  King  or  Queen, 
And  storied  hero  onward,  knew  his  sheen ; 
'Twas  glimpsed  by  Wolfe,  by  Ney  anon, 
And  Nelson  on  his  blue  demesne. 


But  new  light  spread.     That  god's  gold 

nimb 
And  blazon  have  waned  dimmer   and   more 

dim; 

Even  his  flushed  form  begins  to  fade, 
Till  but  a  shade  is  left  of  him. 


THE    SICK    GOD  35 

VI 

That  modern  meditation  broke 
His   spell,   that   penmen's   pleadings   dealt   a 

stroke, 

Say  some  ;  and  some  that  crimes  too  dire 
Did  much  to  mire  his  crimson  cloak. 

VII 

Yea,  seeds  of  crescive  sympathy 
Were  sown  by  those  more  excellent  than  he, 
Long  known,  though  long  contemned  till 

then — 
The  gods  of  men  in  amity. 

VIII 

Souls  have  grown  seers,  and  thought  out- 
brings 

The  mournful  many-sidedness  of  things 
With  foes  as  friends,  enfeebling  ires 
And  fury-fires  by  gaingivings  ! 

IX 

He  scarce  impassions  champions  now ; 
They  do  and  dare,  but  tensely — pale  of  brow  ; 


36  THE    SICK     GOD 

And  would  they  fain  uplift  the  arm 
Of  that  faint  form  they  know  not  how. 

x 

Yet  wars  arise,  though  zest  grows  cold ; 
Wherefore,   at   whiles,   as   'twere    in    ancient 

mould 

He  looms,  bepatched  with  paint  and  lath  ; 
But  never  hath  he  seemed  the  old  ! 

XI 

Let  men  rejoice,  let  men  deplore, 
The  lurid  Deity  of  heretofore 

Succumbs  to  one  of  saner  nod ; 
The  Battle-god  is  god  no  more. 


POEMS   OF   PILGRIMAGE 


GENOA  AND  THE  MEDI- 
TERRANEAN 

(March,    1887) 

O  EPIC-FAMED,    god-haunted    Central 
Sea, 
Heave  careless  of  the  deep  wrong  done 

to  thee 

When  from  Torino's  track  I  saw  thy  face  first 
flash  on  me. 

39 


40      GENOA    AND    THE    MEDITERRANEAN 

And  multimarbled  Geneva  the  Proud, 
Gleam  all  unconscious  how,  wide-lipped, 

up-browed, 

I  first  beheld  thee  clad — not  as  the  Beauty  but 
the  Dowd. 

Out  from  a  deep-delved  way  my  vision 

lit 
On   housebacks   pink,  green,  ochreous — 

where  a  slit 

Shoreward  'twixt  row  and  row  revealed  the 
classic  blue  through  it. 

And  thereacross   waved  fishwives'   high- 
hung  smocks, 
Chrome    kerchiefs,    scarlet    hose,   darned 

underfrocks  ; 

Since   when   too   oft   my  dreams   of  thee,  O 
Queen,  that  frippery  mocks  : 

Whereat  I  grieve,  Superba !  .  .  .  Afterhours 
Within  Palazzo  Doria's  orange  bowers 
Went  far  to  mend  these  marrings  of  thy  soul- 
subliming  powers. 


GENOA    AND    THE    MEDITERRANEAN      4! 

But,  Queen,  such  squalid  undress  none 

should  see, 
Those  dream-endangering  eyewounds  no 

more  be 

Where  lovers  first  behold  thy  form  in  pilgrim- 
age to  thee. 


SHELLEY'S  SKYLARK 

(The  neighbourhood  of  Leghorn  :    March,   1887) 

SOMEWHERE  afield  here  something  lies 
In  Earth's  oblivious  eyeless  trust 
That  moved  a  poet  to  prophecies — 
A  pinch  of  unseen,  unguarded  dust  : 

The  dust  of  the  lark  that  Shelley  heard, 
And  made  immortal  through  times  to  be  ; — 
Though  it  only  lived  like  another  bird, 

And  knew  not  its  immortality. 

42 


SHELLEY  S    SKYLARK  43 

Lived  its  meek  life  ;  then,  one  day,  fell — 
A  little  ball  of  feather  and  bone  ; 
And  how  it  perished,  when  piped  farewell, 
And  where  it  wastes,  are  alike  unknown. 

Maybe  it  rests  in  the  loam  I  view, 

Maybe  it  throbs  in  a  myrtle's  green, 

Maybe  it  sleeps  in  the  coming  hue 

Of  a  grape  on  the  slopes  of  yon  inland  scene. 

Go  find  it,  faeries,  go  and  find 
That  tiny  pinch  of  priceless  dust, 
And  bring  a  casket  silver-lined, 
And  framed  of  gold  that  gems  encrust ; 

And  we  will  lay  it  safe  therein, 
And  consecrate  it  to  endless  time  ; 
For  it  inspired  a  bard  to  win 
Ecstatic  heights  in  thought  and  rhyme. 


IN  THE  OLD  THEATRE,  FIESOLE 

(April,  1887) 

I    TRACED  the  Circus  whose  gray  stones 
incline 

Where  Rome  and  dim  Etruria  interjoin, 
Till  came  a  child  who  showed  an  ancient  coin 
That  bore  the  image  of  a  Constantine. 

She  lightly  passed ;  nor  did  she  once  opine 
How,  better  than  all  books,  she  had   raised 
for  me 


IN    THE    OLD    THEATRE,    FIESOLE          45 

In  swift  perspective  Europe's  history 
Through  the  vast  years  of  Caesar's  sceptred 
line. 

For  in  my  distant  plot  of  English  loam 
Twas  but  to  delve,  and  straightway  there  to 

find 

Coins  of  like  impress.     As  with  one  half  blind 
Whom  common  simples  cure,  her  act  flashed 

home 

In  that  mute  moment  to  my  opened  mind 
The  power,  the  pride,  the  reach  of  perished 

Rome. 


s 


ROME:   ON   THE  PALATINE 

(April,  1887) 

WE     walked    where    Victor    Jove    was 
shrined  awhile, 

And  passed  to  Livia's  rich  red  mural  show, 
Whence,  thridding  cave  and  Criptoportico, 
We  gained  Caligula's  dissolving  pile. 

And  each  ranked  ruin  tended  to  beguile 

The  outer  sense,  and  shape  itself  as  though 

46 


ROME  :     ON    THE    PALATINE  47 

It  wore  its  marble  hues,  its  pristine  glow 
Of  scenic  frieze  and  pompous  peristyle. 

When  lo,  swift  hands,  on  strings  nigh  over- 
head, 

Began  to  melodize  a  waltz  by  Strauss : 
It  stirred  me  as  I  stood,  in  Caesar's  house, 
Raised  the  old  routs  Imperial  lyres  had  led, 

And  blended  pulsing  life  with  lives  long  done, 
Till  Time  seemed  fiction,  Past  and  Present 
one. 


ROME 

BUILDING   A  NEW   STREET   IN   THE 
ANCIENT   QUARTER 

(April,  1887) 

THESE   umbered    cliffs    and    gnarls    of 
masonry 

Outskeleton  Time's  central  city,  Rome  ; 
Whereof  each  arch,  entablature,  and  dome 
Lies  bare  in  all  its  gaunt  anatomy. 

And  cracking  frieze  and  rotten  metope 

Express,  as  though  they  were  an  open  tome 

48 


ROME  49 

Top-lined  with  caustic  monitory  gnome  ; 
"  Dunces,  Learn  here  to  spell  Humanity  ! " 

And  yet  within  these  ruins'  very  shade 

The  singing  workmen  shape  and  set  and  join 

Their  frail  new  mansion's  stuccoed  cove  and 

quoin 

With  no  apparent  sense  that  years  abrade, 
Though   each   rent  wall    their    feeble   works 

invade 
Once  shamed  all  such  in  power  of  pier  and 

groin. 


D 


ROME 

THE  VATICAN— SALA  DELLE   MUSE 
(1887) 

I  SAT  in  the  Muses'  Hall  at  the  mid  of  the 
day, 
And  it  seemed  to  grow  still,  and  the  people  to 

pass  away, 
And  the  chiselled  shapes  to  combine  in  a  haze 

of  sun, 
Till  beside  a  Carrara  column  there  gleamed 

forth  One. 

50 


ROME  51 

She  was  nor  this  nor  that  of  those  beings 
divine, 

But  each  and  the  whole — an  essence  of  all  the 
Nine ; 

With  tentative  foot  she  neared  to  my  halting- 
place, 

A  pensive  smile  on  her  sweet,  small,  marvellous 
face. 

"  Regarded  so  long,  we  render  thee  sad  ?  "  said 
she. 

"  Not  you,"  sighed  I,  "  but  my  own  incon- 
stancy ! 

I  worship  each  and  each  ;  in  the  morning  one, 

And  then,  alas  !  another  at  sink  of  sun. 

"  To-day  my  soul  clasps  Form  ;  but  where  is 

my  troth 
Of  yesternight  with  Tune  :  can  one  cleave  to 

both  ?  " 
—"Be   not  perturbed,"   said  she.     "Though 

apart  in  fame,     . 
As  I  and  my  sisters  are  one,  those,  too,  are  the 

same." 


52  ROME 

— "  But  my  loves  go  further — to   Story,  and 

Dance,  and  Hymn, 
The  lover  of   all   in   a   sun-sweep   is   fool   to 

whim — 
Is   swayed   like   a   river-weed    as   the   ripples 

run  ! " 
— "  Nay,  wight,  thou  sway'st  not.     These  are 

but  phases  of  one  ; 

"And  that  one  is  I  ;  and  I  am  projected  from 
thee, 

One  that  out  of  thy  brain  and  heart  thou 
causest  to  be — 

Extern  to  thee  nothing.  Grieve  not,  nor  thy- 
self becall, 

Woo  where  thou  wilt ;  and  rejoice  thou  canst 
love  at  all ! " 


ROME 

AT  THE   PYRAMID   OF  CESTIUS 
NEAR   THE   GRAVES   OF  SHELLEY  AND   KEATS 

(1887) 

HO,  then,  was  Cestius, 

And  what  is  he  to  me  ? — 
Amid  thick  thoughts  and  memories  multitu- 
dinous 
One  thought  alone  brings  he. 

53 


54  ROME 

I  can  recall  no  word 
Of  anything  he  did  ; 

For  me  he  is  a  man  who  died  and  was  in- 
terred 

To  leave  a  pyramid 

Whose  purpose  was  exprest 
Not  with  its  first  design, 

Nor  till,  far  down  in  Time,  beside  it  found  their 
rest 

Two  countrymen  of  mine. 

Cestius  in  life,  maybe, 
Slew,  breathed  out  threatening ; 
I    know   not.       This    I   know :    in   death   all 
silently 

He  does  a  kindlier  thing, 

In  beckoning  pilgrim  feet 
With  marble  finger  high 

To  where,  by  shadowy  wall  and  history-haunted 
street, 

Those  matchless  singers  lie.  .  .  . 


ROME  55 

— Say,  then,  he  lived  and  died 
That  stones  which  bear  his  name 
Should  mark,  through  Time,  where  two  im- 
mortal Shades  abide ; 
It  is  an  ample  fame. 


LAUSANNE 
IN  GIBBON'S  OLD  GARDEN  :  11-12  P.M. 

June  27,  1897 

(The  i  loth  anniversary  of  the  completion  of  the  "  Decline 
and  Fall "  at  the  same  hour  and  place) 

A  SPIRIT  seems  to  pass, 
Formal  in  pose,  but  grave  and  grand 

withal : 

He  contemplates  a  volume  stout  and  tall, 
And   far  lamps   fleck   him   through  the  thin 
acacias. 


LAUSANNE  57 

Anon  the  book  is  closed, 
With  "  It  is  finished  ! "     And  at  the  alley's 

end 
He  turns,  and  soon  on  me  his  glances 

bend  ; 

And,   as   from   earth,   comes  speech  —  small, 
muted,  yet  composed. 

"  How  fares  the  Truth  now  ?— Ill  ? 
— Do  pens  but  slily  further  her  advance  ? 
May  one   not   speed   her  but   in  phrase 

askance  ? 

Do  scribes  aver  the  Comic  to  be  Reverend 
still  ? 

"  Still  rule  those  minds  on  earth 
At  whom  sage  Milton's  wormwood  words 

were  hurled  : 

'  Truth  like  a  bastard  comes  into  the  world 
Never  without  ill-fame  to  him   who  gives  her 
birth '  ?  " 


ZERMATT 

TO   THE   MATTERHORN 

(June- July ',  1897) 

THIRTY-TWO   years   since,  up  against 
the  sun, 

Seven  shapes,  thin  atomies  to  lower  sight, 
Labouringly  leapt  and   gained   thy   gabled 

height, 
And  four  lives  paid  for  what  the  seven  had 

won. 

58 


ZERMATT  59 

They  were  the  first  by  whom  the  deed  was 

done, 
And  when  I  look  at  thee,  my  mind   takes 

flight 

To  that  day's  tragic  feat  of  manly  might, 
As  though,  till  then,  of  history  thou  hadst 

none. 

Yet  ages   ere   men   topped   thee,   late   and 

soon 
Thou  watch'dst  each  night  the  planets  lift 

and  lower  ; 
Thou  gleam'dst  to  Joshua's  pausing  sun  and 

moon, 
And  brav'dst  the  tokening  sky  when  Caesar's 

power 
Approached  its  bloody  end  :  yea,  saw'st  that 

Noon 
When  darkness  filled  the  earth  till  the  ninth 

hour. 


THE  BRIDGE  OF  LODI* 

(Spring,  1887) 


WHEN  of  tender  mind  and  body 
I  was  moved  by  minstrelsy, 
And  that  strain  "  The  Bridge  of  Lodi  " 
Brought  a  strange  delight  to  me. 

*  Pronounce  "  Loddy." 
60 


THE    BRIDGE    OF    LODI  6l 

II 

In  the  battle-breathing  jingle 
Of  its  forward-footing  tune 

I  could  see  the  armies  mingle, 

And  the  columns  cleft  and  hewn 

in 
On  that  far-famed  spot  by  Lodi 

Where  Napoleon  clove  his  way 
To  his  fame,  when  like  a  god  he 

Bent  the  nations  to  his  sway. 

IV 

Hence  the  tune  came  capering  to  me 
While  I  traced  the  Rhone  and  Po ; 

Nor  could  Milan's  Marvel  woo  me 
From  the  spot  englamoured  so. 


And  to-day,  sunlit  and  smiling, 
Here  I  stand  upon  the  scene, 

With  its  saffron  walls,  dun  tiling, 
And  its  meads  of  maiden  green, 


62  THE    BRIDGE    OF    LODI 

VI 

Even  as  when  the  trackway  thundered 
With  the  charge  of  grenadiers, 

And  the  blood  of  forty  hundred 

Splashed  its  parapets  and  piers.  . 

VII 

Any  ancient  crone  I'd  toady 

Like  a  lass  in  young-eyed  prime, 

Could  she  tell  some  tale  of  Lodi 
At  that  moving  mighty  time. 

VIII 

So,  I  ask  the  wives  of  Lodi 

For  traditions  of  that  day  ; 

But  alas  !  not  anybody 

Seems  to  know  of  such  a  fray. 

IX 

And  they  heed  but  transitory 

Marketings  in  cheese  and  meat, 

Till  I  judge  that  Lodi's  story 
Is  extinct  in  Lodi's  street. 


THE    BRIDGE    OF    LODI  63 

X 

Yet  while  here  and  there  they  thrid  them 
In  their  zest  to  sell  and  buy, 

Let  me  sit  me  down  amid  them 

And  behold  those  thousands  die.  .  .  . 

XI 

— Not  a  creature  cares  in  Lodi 

How  Napoleon  swept  each  arch, 

Or  where  up  and  downward  trod  he, 
Or  for  his  memorial  March  ! 

XII 

So  that  wherefore  should  I  be  here, 

Watching  Adda  lip  the  lea, 
When  the  whole  romance  to  see  here 

Is  the  dream  I  bring  with  me  ? 

XIII 

And  why  sing  "  The  Bridge  of  Lodi " 

As  I  sit  thereon  and  swing, 
When  none  shows  by  smile  or  nod  he 

Guesses  why  or  what  I  sing  ?  .  .  . 


64  THE    BRIDGE    OF    LODI 

XIV 

Since  all  Lodi,  low  and  head  ones, 
Seem  to  pass  that  story  by, 

It  may  be  the  Lodi-bred  ones 
Rate  it  truly,  and  not  I. 

xv 

Once  engrossing  Bridge  of  Lodi, 
Is  thy  claim  to  glory  gone  ? 

Must  I  pipe  a  palinody, 

Or  be  silent  thereupon  ? 

XVI 

And  if  here,  from  strand  to  steeple, 
Be  no  stone  to  fame  the  fight, 

Must  I  say  the  Lodi  people 

Are  but  viewing  crime  aright  ?    .  .  , 

XVII 

Nay  ;  I'll  sing  "The  Bridge  of  Lodi"— 
That  long-loved,  romantic  thing, 

Though  none  show  by  smile  or  nod  he 
Guesses  why  and  what  I  sing  ! 


ON  AN  INVITATION  TO  THE 
UNITED  STATES 

i 

MY  ardours  for  emprize  nigh  lost 
Since  Life   has  bared  its    bones 

to  me, 

I  shrink  to  seek  a  modern  coast 
Whose  riper  times  have  yet  to  be  ; 
Where  the  new  regions  claim  them  free 
From  that  long  drip  of  human  tears 
Which  peoples  old  in  tragedy 
Have  left  upon  the  centuried  years. 

65  TJ 


66        INVITATION    TO    THE    UNITED    STATES 
II 

For,  wonning  in  these  ancient  lands, 

Enchased  and  lettered  as  a  tomb, 

And    scored    with     prints     of     perished 

hands, 

And  chronicled  with  dates  of  doom, 
Though      my     own      Being     bear     no 

bloom 

I  trace  the  lives  such  scenes  enshrine, 
Give  past  exemplars  present  room, 
And  their  experience  count  as  mine. 


MISCELLANEOUS    POEMS 


THE  MOTHER  MOURNS 

WHEN   mid-autumn's   moan  shook  the 
night-time, 

And  sedges  were  horny, 
And  summer's  green  wonderwork  faltered 
On  leaze  and  in  lane, 

I  fared  Yell'ham-Firs  way,  where  dimly 

Came  wheeling  around  me 
Those  phantoms  obscure  and  insistent 

That  shadows  unchain. 


7O  THE    MOTHER    MOURNS 

Till  airs  from  the  needle-thicks  brought  me 

A  low  lamentation, 
As  'twere  of  a  tree-god  disheartened, 

Perplexed,  or  in  pain. 

And,  heeding,  it  awed  me  to  gather 

That  Nature  herself  there 
Was  breathing  in  aerie  accents, 

With  dirgeful  refrain, 

Weary  plaint  that  Mankind,  in  these  late  days, 

Had  grieved  her  by  holding 
Her  ancient  high  fame  of  perfection 

In  doubt  and  disdain.  .  .  . 

— "  I  had  not  proposed  me  a  Creature 

(She  soughed)  so  excelling 
All  else  of  my  kingdom  in  compass 

And  brightness  of  brain 

"  As  to  read  my  defects  with  a  god-glance, 

Uncover  each  vestige 
Of  old  inadvertence,  annunciate 

Each  flaw  and  each  stain  ! 


THE    MOTHER    MOURNS  J I 

"  My  purpose  went  not  to  develop 

Such  insight  in  Earthland  ; 
Such  potent  appraisements  affront  me, 

And  sadden  my  reign  ! 

"  Why  loosened  I  olden  control  here 

To  mechanize  skywards, 
Undeeming  great  scope  could  outshape  in 

A  globe  of  such  grain  ? 

"  Man's  mountings  of  mind-sight  I  checked  not, 

Till  range  of  his  vision 
Has  topped  my  intent,  and  found  blemish 

Throughout  my  domain. 

"  He  holds  as  inept  his  own  soul-shell — 

My  deftest  achievement — 
Contemns  me  for  fitful  inventions 

Ill-timed  and  inane  : 

"  No  more  sees  my  sun  as  a  Sanct-shape, 
My  moon  as  the  Night-queen, 

My  stars  as  august  and  sublime  ones 
That  influences  rain  : 


OF7H, 


72  THE    MOTHER    MOURNS 

"  Reckons  gross  and  ignoble  my  teaching, 

Immoral  my  story, 
My  love-lights  a  lure,  that  my  species 

May  gather  and  gain. 

"  '  Give  me/  he  has  said,  '  but  the  matter 

And  means  the  gods  lot  her, 
My  brain  could  evolve  a  creation 

More  seemly,  more  sane/ 

— "  If  ever  a  naughtiness  seized  me 

To  woo  adulation 

From  creatures  more  keen  than  those  crude 
ones 

That  first  formed  my  train — 

"  If  inly  a  moment  I  murmured, 

1  The  simple  praise  sweetly,  _ 
But  sweetlier  the  sage ' — and  did  rashly 

Man's  vision  unrein, 

"  I  rue  it !  ...  His  guileless  forerunners, 
Whose  brains  I  could  blandish, 


THE  MOTHER  MOURNS         73 

To  measure  the  deeps  of  my  mysteries 
Applied  them  in  vain. 

"  From  them  my  waste  aimings  and  futile 

I  subtly  could  cover  ; 
'  Every  best  thing/  said  they,  '  to  best  purpose 

Her  powers  preordain.' — 

"No  more  such!  .  .  .  My  species  are  dwindling, 

My  forests  grow  barren, 
My  popinjays  fail  from  their  tappings, 

My  larks  from  their  strain. 

"  My  leopardine  beauties  are  rarer, 

My  tusky  ones  vanish, 
My  children  have  aped  mine  own  slaughters 

To  quicken  my  wane. 

"  Let  me  grow,  then,  but  mildews  and  mand- 
rakes, 

And  slimy  distortions, 
Let  nevermore  things  good  and  lovely 

To  me  appertain ; 


74  THE    MOTHER    MOURNS 

"  For  Reason  is  rank  in  my  temples, 

And  Vision  unruly, 
And  chivalrous  laud  of  my  cunning 

Is  heard  not  again  !  " 


"  I  SAID  TO  LOVE  " 


I 


SAID  to  Love, 

"  It  is  not  now  as  in  old  days 
When  men  adored  thee  and  thy  ways 

All  else  above ; 

Named  thee  the  Boy,  the  Bright,  the  One 
Who  spread  a  heaven  beneath  the  sun," 

I  said  to  Love. 


j6  u  I    SAID    TO     LOVE  " 

I  said  to  him, 

"  We  now  know  more  of  thee  than  then  ; 
We  were  but  weak  in  judgment  when, 

With  hearts  abrim, 

We  clamoured  thee  that  thou  would'st  please 
Inflict  on  us  thine  agonies/' 

I  said  to  him. 

I  said  to  Love, 

"  Thou  art  not  young,  thou  art  not  fair, 
No  faery  darts,  no  cherub  air, 

Nor  swan,  nor  dove 
Are  thine  ;  but  features  pitiless, 
And  iron  daggers  of  distress," 

I  said  to  Love. 

"  Depart  then,  Love  !  .  .  . 
— Man's  race  shall  end,  dost  threaten  thou  ? 
The  age  to  come  the  man  of  now 

Know  nothing  of  ? — 
We  fear  not  such  a  threat  from  thee  ; 
We  are  too  old  in  apathy  ! 
Mankind  shall  cease. — So  let  it  be," 

I  said  to  Love. 


A  COMMONPLACE  DAY 


T 


HE  day  is  turning  ghost, 

And  scuttles  from  the  kal- 
endar  in  fits  and  furtively, 

To  join  the  anonymous  host 
Of   those   that   throng    oblivion ;    ceding   his 
place,  maybe, 

To  one  of  like  degree. 

77 


78  A     COMMONPLACE    DAY 

I  part  the  fire-gnawed  logs, 
Rake  forth  the  embers,  spoil  the  busy  flames, 
and  lay  the  ends 

Upon  the  shining  dogs  ; 

Further  and  further  from  the  nooks  the  twi- 
light's stride  extends, 

And  beamless  black  impends. 

Nothing  of  tiniest  worth 

Have  I  wrought,  pondered,  planned  ;  no  one 
thing  asking  blame  or  praise, 

Since  the  pale  corpse-like  birth 
Of  this  diurnal  unit,  bearing  blanks  in  all  its 
rays — 

Dullest  of  dull-hued  Days  ! 

Wanly  upon  the  panes 

The  rain  slides  as  have  slid  since  morn  my 
colourless  thoughts  ;  and  yet 

Here,  while  Day's  presence  wanes, 
And   over   him   the   sepulchre  -  lid    is    slowly 
lowered  and  set, 

He  wakens  my  regret. 


A    COMMONPLACE    DAY  79 

Regret — though  nothing  dear 
That  I  wot  of,  was  toward  in  the  wide  world 
at  his  prime, 

Or  bloomed  elsewhere  than  here, 
To  die  with  his  decease,  and  leave  a  memory 
sweet,  sublime, 

Or  mark  him  out  in  Time.  .  .  . 

— Yet,  maybe,  in  some  soul, 
In  some  spot  undiscerned  on  sea  or  land,  some 
impulse  rose, 

Or  some  intent  upstole 

Of    that     enkindling     ardency     from    whose 
maturer  glows 

The  world's  amendment  flows ; 

But  which,  benumbed  at  birth 
By  momentary  chance  or  wile,  has  missed  its 
hope  to  be 

Embodied  on  the  earth  ; 

And    undervoicings    of     this    loss    to    man's 
futurity 

May  wake  regret  in  me. 


AT  A  LUNAR  ECLIPSE 

THY  shadow,  Earth,  from  Pole  to   Cen- 
tral Sea, 
Now   steals    along    upon    the    Moon's    meek 

shine 

In  even  monochrome  and  curving  line 
Of  imperturbable  serenity. 

How  shall  I  link  such  sun-cast  symmetry 

With  the  torn  troubled  form  I  know  as  thine, 

80 


AT    A    LUNAR    ECLIPSE  8 1 

That  profile,  placid  as  a  brow  divine, 
With  continents  of  moil  and  misery  ? 

And  can  immense  Mortality  but  throw 

So  small  a  shade,  and  Heaven's  high  human 

scheme 
Be  hemmed  within  the  coasts  yon  arc  implies  ? 

Is  such  the  stellar  gauge  of  earthly  show, 
Nation  at  war  with  nation,  brains  that  teem, 
Heroes,  and  women  fairer  than  the  skies  ? 


THE  LACKING  SENSE 

SCENE. — A  sad-coloured  landscape^  W addon  Vale 


TIME,  whence  comes  the  Mother's 

moody  look  amid  her  labours, 
As  of  one  who  all  unwittingly  has  wounded 

where  she  loves  ? 
Why  weaves  she  not  her  world -webs   to 

according  lutes  and  tabors, 
With  nevermore  this  too  remorseful  air  upon 
her  face, 

As  of  angel  fallen  from  grace  ?  " 

82 


THE    LACKING    SENSE  83 


II 

— "  Her  look  is  but  her  story  :   construe  not 

its  symbols  keenly  : 
In   her   wonderworks   most   truly   has    she 

wounded  where  she  loves. 
The  sense  of  ills  misdealt  for  blisses  blanks 

the  mien  most  queenly, 
Self-smitings  kill  self-joys;  and  everywhere 
beneath  the  sun 

Such  deeds  her  hands  have  done/' 


ill 

— "  And  how  explains  thy  Ancient  Mind  her 

crimes  upon  her  creatures, 
These   fallings    from   her    fair    beginnings, 

woundings  where  she  loves, 
Into   her  would-be   perfect   motions,  modes, 

effects,  and  features 

Admitting    cramps,    black    humours,    wan 
decay,  and  baleful  blights, 
Distress  into  delights  ?  " 


84  THE    LACKING    SENSE 

IV 

— "  Ah  !  know'st  thou  not  her  secret  yet,  her 

vainly  veiled  deficience, 
Whence  it  comes  that  all  unwittingly  she 

wounds  the  lives  she  loves  ? 
That  sightless  are  those  orbs  of  hers  ? — which 

bar  to  her  omniscience 
Brings  those  fearful  unfulfilments,  that  red 
ravage  through  her  zones 
Whereat  all  creation  groans. 


"  She  whispers  it  in  each  pathetic  strenuous 

slow  endeavour, 
When   in   mothering   she    unwittingly   sets 

wounds  on  what  she  loves ; 
Yet  her  primal  doom  pursues  her,  faultful,  fatal 

is  she  ever  ; 

Though  so  deft  and  nigh  to  vision  is  her 
facile  finger-touch 

That  the  seers  marvel  much. 


THE    LACKING    SENSE  85 

VI 

"  Deal,  then,  her  groping  skill  no  scorn,  no 

note  of  malediction  ; 
Not  long  on  thee  will  press  the  hand  that 

hurts  the  lives  it  loves  ; 
And  while  she  dares   dead-reckoning   on,  in 

darkness  of  affliction, 

Assist  her  where  thy  creaturely  dependence 
can  or  may, 
For  thou  art  of  her  clay/' 


TO  LIFE 

OLIFE  with  the  sad  seared  face, 
I  weary  of  seeing  thee, 

And  thy  draggled  cloak,  and  thy  hobbling  pace, 
And  thy  too-forced  pleasantry  ! 

I  know  what  thou  would'st  tell 
Of  Death,  Time,  Destiny— 
I  have  known  it  long,  and  know,  too,  well 
What  it  all  means  for  me. 


TO    LIFE  87 

But  canst  thou  not  array 

Thyself  in  rare  disguise, 
And  feign  like  truth,  for  one  mad  day, 
That  Earth  is  Paradise  ? 

I'll  tune  me  to  the  mood, 

And  mumm  with  thee  till  eve ; 
And  maybe  what  as  interlude 

I  feign,  I  shall  believe  ! 


DOOM  AND  SHE 


THERE  dwells  a  mighty  pair- 
Slow,  statuesque,  intense — 
Amid  the  vague  Immense  : 
None  can  their  chronicle  declare, 
Nor  why  they  be,  nor  wjience. 


DOOM    AND    SHE 
II 

Mother  of  all  things  made, 
Matchless  in  artistry, 
Unlit  with  sight  is  she. — 
And  though  her  ever  well-obeyed 
Vacant  of  feeling  he. 

in 

The  Matron  mildly  asks — 
A  throb  in  every  word — 
"  Our  clay-made  creatures,  lord, 
How  fare  they  in  their  mortal  tasks 
Upon  Earth's  bounded  bord  ? 

IV 

"The  fate  of  those  I  bear, 
Dear  lord,  pray  turn  and  view, 
And  notify  me  true  ; 
Shapings  that  eyelessly  I  dare 
Maybe  I  would  undo. 


"  Sometimes  from  lairs  of  life 
Methinks  I  catch  a  groan, 
Or  multitudinous  moan, 


OF  Tht 

UNIVERS; 


9O  DOOM    AND     SHE 

As  though  I  had  schemed  a  world  of  strife, 
Working  by  touch  alone." 

VI 

"  World- weaver  ! "  he  replies, 
"  I  scan  all  thy  domain  ; 
But  since  nor  joy  nor  pain 
Doth  my  clear  substance  recognize, 
I  read  thy  realms  in  vain. 

VII 

"  World- weaver  !  what  is  Grief  ? 
And  what  are  Right,  and  Wrong, 
And  Feeling,  that  belong 
To  creatures  all  who  owe  thee  fief  ? 

What  worse  is  Weak  than  Strong  ?  "  .  . 

VIII 

— Unlightened,  curious,  meek, 
She  broods  in  sad  surmise.  .  .  . 
— Some  say  they  have  heard  her  sighs 
On  Alpine  height  or  Polar  peak 
When  the  night  tempests  rise. 


THE  PROBLEM 

SHALL  we  conceal  the  Case,  or  tell  it — 
We  who  believe  the  evidence  ? 
Here  and  there  the  watch-towers  knell  it 

With  a  sullen  significance, 
Heard  of  the  few  who  hearken  intently  and 
carry  an  eagerly  upstrained  sense. 

91 


92  THE    PROBLEM 

Hearts  that  are  happiest  hold  not  by  it ; 

Better  we  let,  then,  the  old  view  reign  ; 
Since  there  is  peace  in  it,  why  decry  it  ? 

Since  there  is  comfort,  why  disdain  ? 
Note  not  the  pigment  the  while  that  the  painting 
determines  humanity's  joy  and  pain  ! 


THE  SUBALTERNS 


"  1T*\OOR  wanderer,"  said  the  leaden  sky, 

"  I  fain  would  lighten  thee, 
But  there  be  laws  in  force  on  high 
Which  say  it  must  not  be." 


II 

— "  I  would  not  freeze  thee,  shorn  one,"  cried 
The  North,  "  knew  I  but  how 

93 


94  THE    SUBALTERNS 

To  warm  my  breath,  to  slack  my  stride  ; 
But  I  am  ruled  as  thou." 

in 

— "  To-morrow  I  attack  thee,  wight," 
Said  Sickness.     "Yet  I  swear 

I  bear  thy  little  ark  no  spite, 
But  am  bid  enter  there." 

IV 

— "  Come  hither,  Son,"  I  heard  Death  say  ; 

"  I  did  not  will  a  grave 
Should  end  thy  pilgrimage  to-day, 

But  I,  too,  am  a  slave  ! " 


We  smiled  upon  each  other  then, 
And  life  to  me  wore  less 

That  fell  contour  it  wore  ere  when 
They  owned  their  passiveness. 


THE  SLEEP-WORKER 

WHEN  wilt  thou  wake,  O  Mother,  wake 
and  see — 

As  one  who,  held  in  trance,  has  laboured  long 
By  automatic  prepossession  strong — 
The  coils  that  thou  hast  wrought  unwittingly  ; 

Wherein  have  place,  unrealized  by  thee, 

Fair   growths,  foul   cankers,  right  enmeshed 

with  wrong, 

Strange  orchestras  of  victim-shriek  and  song, 
And  curious  blends  of  ache  and  ecstasy  ? — 

93 


96  THE    SLEEP-WORKER 

Should  that  morn  come,  and  show  thy  opened 

eyes 

All  that  Life's  palpitating  tissues  feel, 
How  wilt  thou  bear  thyself  in  thy  surprise  ? — 

Wilt  thou  destroy,  in  one  wild  shock  of  shame, 
Thy  whole  high  heaving  firmamental  frame, 
Or  patiently  adjust,  amend,  and  heal  ? 


THE   BULLFINCHES 

BROTHER  Bulleys,  let  us  sing 
From  the  dawn  till  evening  ! — 
For  we  know  not  that  we  go  not 
When  the  day's  pale  pinions  fold 
Unto  those  who  sang  of  old. 

When  I  flew  to  Blackmoor  Vale, 
Whence  the  green-gowned  faeries  hail, 
Roosting  near  them  I  could  hear  them 
Speak  of  queenly  Nature's  ways, 

Means,  and  moods, — well  known  to  fays. 
97  G 


98  THE    BULLFINCHES 

All  we  creatures,  nigh  and  far 
(Said  they  there),  the  Mother's  are  ; 
Yet  she  never  shows  endeavour 
To  protect  from  warrings  wild 
Bird  or  beast  she  calls  her  child. 

Busy  in  her  handsome  house 
Known  as  Space,  she  falls  a-drowse  ; 
Yet,  in  seeming,  works  on  dreaming, 
While  beneath  her  groping  hands 
Fiends  make  havoc  in  her  bands. 

How  her  hussifry  succeeds 
She  unknows  or  she  unheeds, 
All  things  making  for  Death's  taking  ! 
— So  the  green-gowned  faeries  say 
Living  over  Blackmoor  way. 

Come  then,  brethren,  let  us  sing, 
From  the  dawn  till  evening  ! — 
For  we  know  not  that  we  go  not 
When  the  day's  pale  pinions  fold 
Unto  those  who  sang  of  old. 


GOD-FORGOTTEN 

I  TOWERED  far,  and  lo !  I  stood  within 
The  presence  of  the  Lord  Most  High, 
Sent  thither  by  the  sons  of  earth,  to  win 
Some  answer  to  their  cry. 

— "  The  Earth,  say'st  thou  ?     The  Human 

race  ? 

By  Me  created  ?     Sad  its  lot  ? 
Nay  :  I  have  no  remembrance  of  such  place  : 
Such  world  I  fashioned  not." — 

99 


IOO  GOD-FORGOTTEN 

— "  O  Lord,  forgive  me  when  I  say 
Thou    spak'st    the    word,   and  mad'st   it 

all."— 

"  The  Earth  of  men — let  me  bethink  me.  .  .  . 
Yea! 

I  dimly  do  recall 

"  Some  tiny  sphere  I  framed  long  back 
(Mid  millions  of  such  shapes  of  mine) 
So   named   ...    It   perished,   surely — not   a 
wrack 

Remaining,  or  a  sign  ? 

"  It  lost  my  interest  from  the  first, 
My  aims  therefor  succeeding  ill ; 
Haply  it  died  of  doing  as  it  durst  ?  " — 
"  Lord,  it  existeth  still."— 

"  Dark,  then,  its  life  !     For  not  a  cry 
Of  aught  it  bears  do  I  now  hear  ; 
Of  its  own  act  the  threads  were  snapt  whereby 
Its  plaints  had  reached  mine  ear. 

"  It  used  to  ask  for  gifts  of  good, 
Till  came  its  severance  self-entailed, 


GOD-FORGOTTEN  IOI 

When  sudden  silence  on  that  side  ensued, 
And  has  till  now  prevailed. 

"  All  other  orbs  have  kept  in  touch  ; 
Their  voicings  reach  me  speedily  : 
Thy  people  took  upon  them  overmuch 
In  sundering  them  from  me  ! 

"  And  it  is  strange — though  sad  enough — 
Earth's  race  should  think  that  one  whose 

call 

Frames,  daily,  shining  spheres  of  flawless  stuff 
Must  heed  their  tainted  ball  !  .  .  . 

"  But  say'st  thou  'tis  by  pangs  distraught, 
And  strife,  and  silent  suffering  ? — 
Deep    grieved    am   I    that    injury   should    be 
wrought 

Even  on  so  poor  a  thing  ! 

"Thou  should'st  have  learnt  that  Not  to 

Mend 

For  Me  could  mean  but  Not  to  Know  : 
Hence,  Messengers !  and  straightway  put  an  end 
To  what  men  undergo."  .  .  . 


IO2  GOD-FORGOTTEN 

Homing  at  dawn,  I  thought  to  see 
One  of  the  Messengers  standing  by. 
— Oh,  childish  thought !  .  .  .  Yet  oft  it  comes 
to  me 

When  trouble  hovers  nigh. 


THE    BEDRIDDEN    PEASANT 

TO     AN     UNKNOWING     GOD 

MUCH  wonder  I — here  long  low-laid- 
That  this  dead  wall  should  be 
Betwixt  the  Maker  and  the  made, 
Between  Thyself  and  me  ! 

For,  say  one  puts  a  child  to  nurse, 

He  eyes  it  now  and  then 
To  know  if  better  'tis,  or  worse, 

And  if  it  mourn,  and  when. 

103 


IO4      THE  BEDRIDDEN  PEASANT 

But  Thou,  Lord,  giv'st  us  men  our  day 

In  helpless  bondage  thus 
To  Time  and  Chance,  and  seem'st  straightway 

To  think  no  more  of  us  ! 

That  some  disaster  cleft  Thy  scheme 

And  tore  us  wide  apart, 
So  that  no  cry  can  cross,  I  deem  ; 

For  Thou  art  mild  of  heart, 

And  would'st  not  shape  and  shut  us  in 
Where  voice  can  not  be  heard  : 

'Tis  plain  Thou  meant'st  that  we  should  win 
Thy  succour  by  a  word. 

Might  but  Thy  sense  flash  down  the  skies 
Like  man's  from  clime  to  clime, 

Thou  would'st  not  let  me  agonize 

Through  my  remaining  time  ; 

But,  seeing  how  much  Thy  creatures  bear — 
Lame,  starved,  or  maimed,  or  blind — 

Thou'dst  heal  the  ills  with  quickest  care 
Of  me  and  all  my  kind. 


THE    BEDRIDDEN     PEASANT  105 

Then,  since  Thou  mak'st  not  these  things  be, 
But  these  things  dost  not  know, 

I'll  praise  Thee  as  were  shown  to  me 

The  mercies  Thou  would'st  show  ! 


BY   THE   EARTH'S   CORPSE 


LORD,  why  grieves!  Thou  ?- 
Since  Life  has  ceased  to  be 
Upon  this  globe,  now  cold 
As  lunar  land  and  sea, 
And  humankind,  and  fowl,  and  fur 

Are  gone  eternally, 
All  is  the  same  to  Thee  as  ere 
They  knew  mortality." 

106 


BY    THE    EARTH  S    CORPSE 


II 

"  O  Time/'  replied  the  Lord, 

"  Thou  read'st  me  ill,  I  ween  ; 
Were  all  the  same,  I  should  not  grieve 

At  that  late  earthly  scene, 
Now  blestly  past  —  though  planned  by  me 

With  interest  close  and  keen  !  — 
Nay,  nay  :  things  now  are  not  the  same 

As  they  have  earlier  been. 

in 

"  Written  indelibly 

On  my  eternal  mind 

Are  all  the  wrongs  endured 

By  Earth's  poor  patient  kind, 

Which  my  too  oft  unconscious  hand 
Let  enter  undesigned. 

No  god  can  cancel  deeds  foredone, 
Or  thy  old  coils  unwind  ! 

IV 

"  As  when,  in  Noe's  days, 

I  whelmed  the  plains  with  sea, 


io8  BY  THE   EARTH'S  CORPSE 

So  at  this  last,  when  flesh 

And  herb  but  fossils  be, 
And,  all  extinct,  their  piteous  dust 

Revolves  obliviously, 
That  I  made  Earth,  and  life,  and  man, 

It  still  repenteth  me  !  " 


MUTE    OPINION 


1  TRAVERSED  a  dominion 
Whose  spokesmen  spake  out  strong 
Their  purpose  and  opinion 
Through  pulpit,  press,  and  song. 
I  scarce  had  means  to  note  there 
A  large-eyed  few,  and  dumb, 
Who  thought  not  as  those  thought  there 

That  stirred  the  heat  and  hum. 

109 


HO  MUTE    OPINION 

II 

When,  grown  a  Shade,  beholding 
That  land  in  lifetime  trode, 
To  learn  if  its  unfolding 
Fulfilled  its  clamoured  code, 
I  saw,  in  web  unbroken, 
Its  history  outwrought 
Not  as  the  loud  had  spoken, 
But  as  the  mute  had  thought. 


TO  AN  UNBORN  PAUPER  CHILD 


BREATHE  not,  hid  Heart:  cease  silently, 
And  though  thy  birth-hour  beckons 
thee, 

Sleep  the  long  sleep  : 
The  Doomsters  heap 
Travails  and  teens  around  us  here, 
And   Time-wraiths  turn  our  songsingings   to 
fear. 


112        TO    AN    UNBORN     PAUPER    CHILD 
II 

Hark,  how  the  peoples  surge  and  sigh, 
And  laughters  fail,  and  greetings  die  : 

Hopes  dwindle  ;  yea, 

Faiths  waste  away, 
Affections  and  enthusiasms  numb  ; 
Thou  canst  not  mend  these  things  if  thou  dost 

come. 

HI 

Had  I  the  ear  of  wombed  souls 
Ere  their  terrestrial  chart  unrolls, 

And  thou  wert  free 

To  cease,  or  be, 

Then  would  I  tell  thee  all  I  know, 
And  put  it  to  thee :  Wilt  thou  take  Life  so  ? 

IV 

Vain  vow  !     No  hint  of  mine  may  hence 
To  theeward  fly  :  to  thy  locked  sense 
Explain  none  can 
Life's  pending  plan  : 
Thou  wilt  thy  ignorant  entry  make 
Though  skies  spout  fire  and  blood  and  nations 
quake. 


TO    AN    UNBORN    PAUPER    CHILD 


Fain  would  I,  dear,  find  some  shut  plot 
Of  earth's  wide  wold  for  thee,  where  not 
One  tear,  one  qualm, 
Should  break  the  calm. 
But  I  am  weak  as  thou  and  bare  ; 
No  man  can  change  the  common  lot  to  rare. 

VI 

Must  come  and  bide.    And  such  are  we 
Unreasoning,  sanguine,  visionary  — 
That  I  can  hope 
Health,  love,  friends,  scope 
In  full  for  thee  ;  can  dream  thou'lt  find 
Joys  seldom  yet  attained  by  humankind  ! 


TO    FLOWERS    FROM    ITALY   IN 
WINTER 

SUNNED  in  the  South,  and  here  to-day ; 
— If  all  organic  things 
Be  sentient,  Flowers,  as  some  men  say, 
What  are  your  ponderings  ? 

How  can  you  stay,  nor  vanish  quite 

From  this  bleak  spot  of  thorn, 
And  birch,  and  fir,  and  frozen  white 

Expanse  of  the  forlorn  ? 

114 


TO    FLOWERS    FROM    ITALY    IN    WINTER 

Frail  luckless  exiles  hither  brought ! 

Your  dust  will  not  regain 
Old  sunny  haunts  of  Classic  thought 

When  you  shall  waste  and  wane  ; 

But  mix  with  alien  earth,  be  lit 
With  frigid  Boreal  flame, 

And  not  a  sign  remain  in  it 
To  tell  men  whence  you  came. 


ON   A   FINE   MORNING 


WHENCE  comes     Solace  ?  — Not 
from  seeing 

What  is  doing,  suffering,  being, 
Not  from  noting  Life's  conditions, 
Nor  from  heeding  Time's  monitions  ; 
But  in  cleaving  to  the  Dream, 
And  in  gazing  at  the  gleam 
Whereby  gray  things  golden  seem. 

116 


ON    A    FINE    MORNING  117 

II 

Thus  do  I  this  heyday,  holding 
Shadows  but  as  lights  unfolding, 
As  no  specious  show  this  moment 
With  its  irised  embowment ; 
But  as  nothing  other  than 
Part  of  a  benignant  plan  ; 
Proof  that  earth  was  made  for  man. 

February  1899. 


TO    LIZBIE   BROWNE 


DEAR  Lizbie  Browne, 
Where  are  you  now  ? 
In  sun,  in  rain  ? — 
Or  is  your  brow 
Past  joy,  past  pain, 
Dear  Lizbie  Browne  ? 

118 


TO    LIZBIE    BROWNE  119 

II 

Sweet  Lizbie  Browne 
How  you  could  smile, 
How  you  could  sing  ! — 
How  archly  wile 
In  glance-giving, 
Sweet  Lizbie  Browne  ! 

ill 

And,  Lizbie  Browne, 
Who  else  had  hair 
Bay-red  as  yours, 
Or  flesh  so  fair 
Bred  out  of  doors, 
Sweet  Lizbie  Browne  ? 

IV 

When,  Lizbie  Browne, 
You  had  just  begun 
To  be  endeared 
By  stealth  to  one, 
You  disappeared. 
My  Lizbie  Browne  ) 


I2O  TO    LIZBIE    BROWNE 

V 

Ay,  Lizbie  Browne, 
So  swift  your  life, 
And  mine  so  slow, 
You  were  a  wife 
Ere  I  could  show 
Love,  Lizbie  Browne. 

VI 

Still,  Lizbie  Browne, 
You  won,  they  said, 
The  best  of  men 
When  you  were  wed.  . 
Where  went  you  then, 

0  Lizbie  Browne  ? 

VII 

Dear  Lizbie  Browne, 

1  should  have  thought, 
"  Girls  ripen  fast," 
And  coaxed  and  caught 
You  ere  you  passed, 
Dear  Lizbie  Browne  ! 


TO    LIZBIE    BROWNE  121 

VIII 

But,  Lizbie  Browne, 
I  let  you  slip  ; 
Shaped  not  a  sign  ; 
Touched  never  your  lip 
With  lip  of  mine, 
Lost  Lizbie  Browne  ! 

IX 

So,  Lizbie  Browne, 
When  on  a  day 
Men  speak  of  me 
As  not,  you'll  say, 
"  And  who  was  he  ?  "— 
Yes,  Lizbie  Browne  ! 


SONG   OF   HOPE 

O  SWEET  To-morrow  !— 
After  to-day 
There  will  away 
This  sense  of  sorrow. 
Then  let  us  borrow 
Hope,  for  a  gleaming 
Soon  will  be  streaming, 

Dimmed  by  no  gray- 
No  gray  ! 


SONG    OF    HOPE  123 

While  the  winds  wing  us 

Sighs  from  The  Gone, 
Nearer  to  dawn 

Minute-beats  bring  us ; 

When  there  will  sing  us 

Larks  of  a  glory 

Waiting  our  story 

Further  anon — 
Anon  ! 

Doff  the  black  token, 

Don  the  red  shoon, 
Right  and  retune 

Viol-strings  broken  ; 

Null  the  words  spoken 

In  speeches  of  rueing, 

The  night  cloud  is  hueing, 

To-morrow  shines  soon- 
Shines  soon  ! 


THE  WELL-BELOVED 

I    WAVED  by  star  and  planet  shine 
Towards  the  dear  one's  home 
At  Kingsbere,  there  to  make  her  mine 
When  the  next  sun  upclomb. 

I  edged  the  ancient  hill  and  wood^ 

Beside  the  Ikling  Way, 
Nigh  where  the  Pagan  temple  stood 

In  the  world's  earlier  day. 


THE    WELL-BELOVED  125 

And  as  I  quick  and  quicker  walked 

On  gravel  and  on  green, 
I  sang  to  sky,  and  tree,  or  talked 

Of  her  I  called  my  queen. 

— "  O  faultless  is  her  dainty  form, 

And  luminous  her  mind  ; 
She  is  the  God-created  norm 

Of  perfect  womankind ! " 

A  shape  whereon  one  star-blink  gleamed 

Glode  softly  by  my  side, 
A  woman's  ;  and  her  motion  seemed 

The  motion  of  my  bride. 

• 

And  yet  methought  she'd  drawn  erstwhile 

Adown  the  ancient  leaze, 
Where  once  were  pile  and  peristyle 

For  men's  idolatries. 

— "  O  maiden  lithe  and  lone,  what  may 

Thy  name  and  lineage  be, 
Who  so  resemblest  by  this  ray 

My  darling  ?— Art  thou  she  ?  " 


OF  THfc 

UNlVERSi 


126  THE    WELL-BELOVED 

The  Shape  :  "Thy  bride  remains  within 
Her  father's  grange  and  grove." 

— "  Thou  speakest  rightly/'  I  broke  in, 
Thou  art  not  she  I  love." 

— "  Nay  :  though  thy  bride  remains  inside 
Her  father's  walls,"  said  she, 

"  The  one  most  dear  is  with  thee  here, 
For  thou  dost  love  but  me." 

Then  I :  "  But  she,  my  only  choice, 
Is  now  at  Kingsbere  Grove  ?" 

Again  her  soft  mysterious  voice  : 
"  I  am  thy  only  Love." 

Thus  still  she  vouched,  and  still  I  said, 
"  O  sprite,  that  cannot  be  !  "... 

It  was  as  if  my  bosom  bled, 
So  much  she  troubled  me. 

The  sprite  resumed  :  "  Thou  hast  transferred 

To  her  dull  form  awhile 
My  beauty,  fame,  and  deed,  and  word, 

My  gestures  and  my  smile. 


THE    WELL-BELOVED 

"  O  fatuous  man,  this  truth  infer, 

-  ^> 
Brides  are  not  what  they  seem  ; 

Thou  lovest  what  thou  dreamest  her  ; 
I  am  thy  very  dream  ! " 

— "  O  then,"  I  answered  miserably, 

Speaking  as  scarce  I  knew, 
"  My  loved  one,  I  must  wed  with  thee 

If  what  thou  say'st  be  true  ! " 

She,  proudly,  thinning  in  the  gloom  : 

"  Though,  since  troth-plight  began,  „. 

I've  ever  stood  as  bride  to  groom, 
I  wed  no  mortal  man  ! " 

Thereat  she  vanished  by  the  Cross 

That,  entering  Kingsbere  town, 
The  two  long  lanes  form,  near  the  fosse 

Below  the  faneless  Down. 

— When  I  arrived  and  met  my  bride, 

Her  look  was  pinched  and  thin, 
As  if  her  soul  had  shrunk  and  died, 

And  left  a  waste  within. 


HER  REPROACH 

CON  the  dead  page  as  'twere  live  love  : 
press  on  ! 
Cold  wisdom's  words  will  ease  thy  track  for 

thee; 

Aye,  go  ;  cast  off  sweet  ways,  and  leave  me 
wan 

To  biting  blasts  that  are  intent  on  me. 

128 


HER    REPROACH  129 

But  if  thy  object  Fame's  far  summits  be, 
Whose  inclines  many  a  skeleton  o'erlies 
That  missed  both  dream  and  substance,  stop 

and  see 
How  absence  wears  these  cheeks  and  dims 

these  eyes  ! 

It  surely  is  far  sweeter  and  more  wise 
To  water  love,  than  toil  to  leave  anon 
A  name  whose  glory-gleam  will  but  advise 
Invidious  minds  to  quench  it  with  their  own, 

And  over  which  the  kindliest  will  but  stay 
A  moment,  musing,  "  He,  too,  had  his  day  ! " 

WESTBOURNE  PARK  VILLAS, 
1867. 

• 

• 


THE    INCONSISTENT 

I  SAY,  "  She  was  as  good  as  fair," 
When  standing  by  her  mound  ; 
"  Such  passing  sweetness/'  I  declare, 

"  No  longer  treads  the  ground." 
I  say,  "  What  living  Love  can  catch 

Her  bloom  and  bonhomie, 
And  what  in  newer  maidens  match 

Her  olden  warmth  to  me  !" 

130 


THE    INCONSISTENT 

— There  stands  within  yon  vestry-nook 

Where  bonded  lovers  sign, 
Her  name  upon  a  faded  book 

With  one  that  is  not  mine. 
To  him  she  breathed  the  tender  vow 

She  once  had  breathed  to  me, 
But  yet  I  say,  "  O  love,  even  now 

Would  I  had  died  for  thee  ! " 


A    BROKEN    APPOINTMENT 


Y 


OU  did  not  come, 

And  marching  Time   drew 
on,  and  wore  me  numb. — 
Yet  less  for  loss  of  your  dear  presence  there 
Than  that  I  thus  found  lacking  in  your  make 
That  high  compassion  which  can  overbear 
Reluctance  for  pure  lovingkindness'  sake 
Grieved  I,  when,  as  the  hope-hour  stroked  its 
sum, 

You  did  not  come. 

132 


A    BROKEN    APPOINTMENT  133 

You  love  not  me, 

And  love  alone  can  lend  you  loyalty  ; 
— I  know  and  knew  it.     But,  unto  the  store 
Of  human  deeds  divine  in  all  but  name, 
Was  it  not  worth  a  little  hour  or  more 
To  add  yet  this  :  Once,  you,  a  woman,  came 
To  soothe  a  time-torn  man  ;  even  though 
it  be 

You  love  not  me  ? 


"BETWEEN   US    NOW" 

BETWEEN  us  now  and  here — 
Two  thrown  together 
Who  are  not  wont  to  wear 

Life's  flushest  feather — 
Who  see  the  scenes  slide  past, 
The  daytimes  dimming  fast, 
Let  there  be  truth  at  last, 
Even  if  despair. 


"  BETWEEN    US    NOW  135 

So  thoroughly  and  long 

Have  you  now  known  me, 

So  real  in  faith  and  strong 
Have  I  now  shown  me, 

That  nothing  needs  disguise 

Further  in  any  wise, 

Or  asks  or  justifies 

A  guarded  tongue. 

Face  unto  face,  then,  say, 

Eyes  mine  own  meeting, 
Is  your  heart  far  away, 

Or  with  mine  beating  ? 
When  false  things  are  brought  low, 
And  swift  things  have  grown  slow, 
Feigning  like  froth  shall  go, 

Faith  be  for  aye. 


"HOW   GREAT   MY   GRIEF" 

(TRIOLET) 

HOW  great  my  grief,  my  joys  how  few, 
Since  first  it  was  my  fate  to  know 
thee  ! 

— Have  the  slow  years  not  brought  to  view 
How  great  my  grief,  my  joys  how  few, 
Nor  memory  shaped  old  times  anew, 

Nor  loving-kindness  helped  to  show  thee 
How  great  my  grief,  my  joys  how  few, 

Since  first  it  was  my  fate  to  know  thee  ? 


136 


"I  NEED  NOT  GO" 

I    NEED  not  go 
Through  sleet  and  snow 
To  where  I  know 
She  waits  for  me  ; 
She  will  wait  me  there 
Till  I  find  it  fair, 
And  have  time  to  spare 
From  company. 

When  I've  overgot 
The  world  somewhat, 
When  things  cost  not 
Such  stress  and  strain, 


I38  "  I    NEED    NOT    GO  " 

Is  soon  enough 
By  cypress  sough 
To  tell  my  Love 
I  am  come  again. 

And  if  some  day, 
When  none  cries  nay, 
I  still  delay 
To  seek  her  side, 
(Though  ample  measure 
Of  fitting  leisure 
Await  my  pleasure) 
She  will  not  chide. 

What — not  upbraid  me 
That  I  delayed  me, 
Nor  ask  what  stayed  me 
So  long  ?     Ah,  no  ! — 
New  cares  may  claim  me, 
New  loves  inflame  me, 
She  will  not  blame  me, 
But  suffer  it  so. 


THE  COQUETTE,  AND  AFTER 

(TRIOLETS) 


FOR  long  the  cruel  wish  I  knew 
That  your  free  heart  should  ache  for  me, 
While  mine  should  bear  no  ache  for  you  ; 
For,  long — the  cruel  wish  ! — I  knew 
How  men  can  feel,  and  craved  to  view 
My  triumph — fated  not  to  be 
For  long  !  .  .  .  The  cruel  wish  I  knew 

That  your  free  heart  should  ache  for  me  ! 

139 


I4O  THE    COQUETTE,    AND    AFTER 

II 

At  last  one  pays  the  penalty — 

The  woman — women  always  do. 

My  farce,  I  found,  was  tragedy 

At  last ! — One  pays  the  penalty 

With  interest  when  one,  fancy-free, 

Learns  love,  learns  shame.  ...  Of  sinners 

two 

At  last  one  pays  the  penalty — 
The  woman — women  always  do  ! 


A   SPOT 

IN  years  defaced  and  lost, 
Two  sat  here,  transport-tossed, 
Lit  by  a  living  love 
The  wilted  world  knew  nothing  of : 
Scared  momently 
By  gaingivings, 
Then  hoping  things 
That  could  not  be. 


I4T 


142  A    SPOT 

Of  love  and  us  no  trace 
Abides  upon  the  place  ; 
The  sun  and  shadows  wheel, 
Season  and  season  sereward  steal ; 

Foul  days  and  fair 

Here,  too,  prevail, 

And  gust  and  gale 

As  everywhere. 

But  lonely  shepherd  souls 
Who  bask  amid  these  knolls 
May  catch  a  faery  sound 
On  sleepy  noontides  from  the  ground 
"  O  not  again 
Till  Earth  outwears 
Shall  love  like  theirs 
Suffuse  this  glen  !  " 


LONG   PLIGHTED 

IS  it  worth  while,  dear,  now, 
To  call  for  bells,  and  sally  forth  arrayed 
For   marriage -rites  —  discussed,    decried,   de- 
layed 

So  many  years  ? 

Is  it  worth  while,  dear,  now, 
To  stir  desire  for  old  fond  purposings, 
By  feints  that  Time  still  serves  for  dallyings, 
Though  quittance  nears  ? 

•43 


144  LONG    PLIGHTED 

Is  it  worth  while,  dear,  when 
The  day  being  so  far  spent,  so  low  the  sun, 
The  undone  thing  will  soon  be  as  the  done, 
And  smiles  as  tears  ? 

Is  it  worth  while,  dear,  when 
Our  cheeks  are  worn,  our  early  brown  is  gray; 
When,  meet  or  part  we,  none  says  yea  or  nay, 
Or  heeds,  or  cares  ? 

Is  it  worth  while,  dear,  since 
We    still   can   climb    old   Yell'ham's  wooded 

mounds 

Together,  as  each  season  steals  its  rounds 
And  disappears  ? 

Is  it  worth  while,  dear,  since 
As  mates  in  Mellstock  churchyard  we  can  lie, 
Till  the  last  crash  of  all  things  low  and  high 
Shall  end  the  spheres  ? 


THE   WIDOW 

BY  Mellstock  Lodge  and  Avenue 
Towards  her  door  I  went, 
And  sunset  on  her  window-panes 
Reflected  our  intent. 

The  creeper  on  the  gable  nigh 
Was  fired  to  more  than  red 

And  when  I  came  to  halt  thereby 
"  Bright  as  my  joy  ! "  I  said. 


146  THE    WIDOW 

Of  late  days  it  had  been  her  aim 

To  meet  me  in  the  hall ; 
Now  at  my  footsteps  no  one  came, 

And  no  one  to  my  call. 

Again  I  knocked,  and  tardily 

An  inner  step  was  heard, 
And  I  was  shown  her  presence  then 

With  scarce  an  answering  word. 

She  met  me,  and  but  barely  took 

My  proffered  warm  embrace  ; 
Preoccupation  weighed  her  look, 

And  hardened  her  sweet  face. 

"  To-morrow — could  you — would  you  call  ? 

Make  brief  your  present  stay  ? 
My  child  is  ill — my  one,  my  all  ! — 

And  can't  be  left  to-day." 

And  then  she  turns,  and  gives  commands 

As  I  were  out  of  sound, 
Or  were  no  more  to  her  and  hers 

Than  any  neighbour  round.  .  .  , 


THE    WIDOW  147 

— As  maid  I  wooed  her  ;  but  one  came 

And  coaxed  her  heart  away, 
And  when  in  time  he  wedded  her 

I  deemed  her  gone  for  aye. 

He  won,  I  lost  her ;  and  my  loss 

I  bore  I  know  not  how ; 
But  I  do  think  I  suffered  then 

Less  wretchedness  than  now. 

For  Time,  in  taking  him,  had  oped 

An  unexpected  door 
Of  bliss  for  me,  which  grew  to  seem 

Far  surer  than  before.  .  .  . 

Her  word  is  steadfast,  and  I  know 

That  plighted  firm  are  we  : 
But  she  has  caught  new  love-calls  since 

She  smiled  as  maid  on  me  ! 


AT   A   HASTY   WEDDING 

(TRIOLET) 

IF  hours  be  years  the  twain  are  blest, 
For  now  they  solace  swift  desire 
By  bonds  of  every  bond  the  best, 
If  hours  be  years.    The  twain  are  blest 
Do  eastern  stars  slope  never  west, 
Nor  pallid  ashes  follow  fire  : 
If  hours  be  years  the  twain  are  blest, 
For  now  they  solace  swift  desire. 


THE   DREAM-FOLLOWER 

A  DREAM  of  mine  flew  over  the  mead 
To  the  halls  where   my  old  Love 

reigns ; 

And  it  drew  me  on  to  follow  its  lead  : 
And  I  stood  at  her  window-panes ; 

And  I  saw  but  a  thing  of  flesh  and  bone 
Speeding  on  to  its  cleft  in  the  clay ; 

And  my  dream  was  scared,  and  expired  on  a 

moan, 
And  I  whitely  hastened  away. 


149 


HIS   IMMORTALITY 


I    SAW  a  dead  man's  finer  part 
Shining  within  each  faithful  heart 
Of  those  bereft.     Then  said  I  :  "This  must  be 
His  immortality." 

II 

I  looked  there  as  the  seasons  wore, 
And  still  his  soul  continuously  upbore 
Its  life  in  theirs.     But  less  its  shine  excelled 

Than  when  I  first  beheld. 

150 


HIS    IMMORTALITY 


Ill 


His  fellow-yearsmen  passed,  and  then 
In  later  hearts  I  looked  for  him  again  ; 
And  found  him  —  shrunk,  alas  !  into  a  thin 
And  spectral  mannikin. 

IV 

Lastly  I  ask  —  now  old  and  chill  — 
If  aught  of  him  remain  unperished  still  ; 
And  find,  in  me  alone,  a  feeble  spark, 
Dying  amid  the  dark. 

February  1899. 


THE   TO-BE-FORGOTTEN 


1 


i 

HEARD  a  small  sad  sound, 

And    stood    awhile    amid    the 

tombs  around  : 

Wherefore,   old    friends/'   said    I,    "  are    ye 
distrest, 

Now,  screened  from  life's  unrest  ?  " 


THE    TO-BE-FORGOTTEN  153 

II 

— "  O  not  at  being  here  ; 
But  that  our  future  second  death  is  drear  ; 
When,  with  the  living,  memory  of  us  numbs, 

And  blank  oblivion  comes  ! 

in 

"  Those  who  our  grandsires  be 
Lie  here  embraced  by  deeper  death  than  we  ; 
Nor  shape  nor  thought  of  theirs  canst  thou 
descry 

With  keenest  backward  eye. 

IV 

"  They  bide  as  quite  forgot ; 
They  are  as  men  who  have  existed  not ; 
Theirs  is  a  loss  past  loss  of  fitful  breath  ; 

It  is  the  second  death. 


"  We  here,  as  yet,  each  day 
Are  blest  with  dear  recall ;  as  yet,  alway 
In  some  soul  hold  a  loved  continuance 

Of  shape  and  voice  and  glance. 


I  J4  THE    TO-BE-FORGOTTEN 

VI 

"  But  what  has  been  will  be — 
First  memory,  then  oblivion's  turbid  sea  ; 
Like  men  foregone,  we  join  us  unto  those 

Whose  story  no  one  knows. 

VII 

"  For  which  of  us  could  hope 
To  show  in  life  that  world-awakening  scope 
Granted  the  few  whose  memory  none  lets  die, 

But  all  men  magnify  ? 

VIII 

"  We  were  but  Fortune's  sport ; 
Things  true,  things  lovely,  things  of  good 

report 

We   neither   shunned   nor   sought  .  .  .  We 
see  our  bourne, 

And  seeing  it  we  mourn." 


WIVES   IN  THE   SERE 


NEVER  a  careworn  wife  but  shows, 
If  a  joy  suffuse  her, 
Something  beautiful  to  those 

Patient  to  peruse  her, 
Some  one  charm  the  world  unknows 

Precious  to  a  muser, 
Haply  what,  ere  years  were  foes, 
Moved  her  mate  to  choose  her. 


156  WIVES    IN    THE    SERE 

II 

But,  be  it  a  hint  of  rose 

That  an  instant  hues  her, 
Or  some  early  light  or  pose 

Wherewith  thought  renews  her- 
Seen  by  him  at  full,  ere  woes 

Practised  to  abuse  her — 
Sparely  comes  it,  swiftly  goes, 

Time  again  subdues  her. 


THE  SUPERSEDED 


A  newer  comers  crowd  the  fore, 
We  drop  behind. 
— We  who  have  laboured  long  and  sore 

Times  out  of  mind, 
And  keen  are  yet,  must  not  regret 
To  drop  behind. 


158  THE    SUPERSEDED 

II 

Yet  there  are  of  us  some  who  grieve 

To  go  behind ; 
Staunch,  strenuous  souls  who  scarce  believe 

Their  fires  declined, 
And  know  none  cares,  remembers,  spares 

Who  go  behind. 

in 

'Tis  not  that  we  have  unforetold 

The  drop  behind  ; 
We  feel  the  new  must  oust  the  old 

In  every  kind  ; 
But  yet  we  think,  must  we,  must  we, 

Too,  drop  behind  ? 


AN  AUGUST  MIDNIGHT 


A  SHADED  lamp  and  a  waving  blind, 
And  the  beat  of  a  clock  from  a  distant 

floor  : 
On   this  scene   enter  —  winged,  horned,  and 

spined — 

A  longlegs,  a  moth,  and  a  dumbledore ; 
While  'mid  my  page  there  idly  stands 
A  sleepy  fly,  that  rubs  its  hands  .  .  . 


OF 


l6o  AN     AUGUST    MIDNIGHT 

II 

Thus  meet  we  five,  in  this  still  place, 
At  this  point  of  time,  at  this  point  in  space. 
— My  guests  parade  my  new-penned  ink, 
Or  bang  at  the  lamp-glass,  whirl,  and  sink. 
"  God's  humblest,  they  ! "  I  muse.     Yet  why  ? 
They  know  Earth-secrets  that  know  not  I. 

MAX  GATE,  1899. 


THE  CAGED  THRUSH  FREED  AND 
HOME  AGAIN 

(VILLANELLE) 

"  A  yf^^  know  but  little  more  than  we, 
1 V 1.     W^°  count us  least  of  things  terrene, 
How  happy  days  are  made  to  be  ! 

"  Of  such  strange  tidings  what  think  ye, 
O  birds  in  brown  that  peck  and  preen  ? 
Men  know  but  little  more  than  we  ! 

161 


l62  THE    CAGED    THRUSH    FREED 

"  When  I  was  borne  from  yonder  tree 
In  bonds  to  them,  I  hoped  to  glean 
How  happy  days  are  made  to  be, 

"  And  want  and  wailing  turned  to  glee  ; 
Alas,  despite  their  mighty  mien 
Men  know  but  little  more  than  we  ! 

"They  cannot  change  the  Frost's  decree, 
They  cannot  keep  the  skies  serene  ; 
How  happy  days  are  made  to  be 

"  Eludes  great  Man's  sagacity 
No  less  than  ours,  O  tribes  in  treen  ! 
Men  know  but  little  more  than  we 
How  happy  days  are  made  to  be." 


BIRDS  AT  WINTER  NIGHTFALL 

(TRIOLET) 

ABOUND  the  house  the  flakes  fly  faster, 
And  all  the  berries  now  are  gone 
From  holly  and  cotoneaster 
Around  the  house.    The  flakes  fly  ! — faster 
Shutting  indoors  that  crumb-outcaster 
We  used  to  see  upon  the  lawn 
Around  the  house.     The  flakes  fly  faster, 
And  all  the  berries  now  are  gone  ! 

MAX  GATE. 


163 


THE  PUZZLED  GAME-BIRDS 

(TRIOLET) 

THEY  are  not  those  who  used  to  feed  us 
When  we  were  young — they    cannot 

be— 

These  shapes  that  now  bereave  and  bleed  us  ? 
They  are  not  those  who  used  to  feed  us, — 
For  would  they  not  fair  terms  concede  us  ? 
— If  hearts  can  house  such  treachery 
They  are  not  those  who  used  to  feed  us 
When  we  were  young — they  cannot  be  ! 


WINTER  IN  DURNOVER  FIELD 

SCENE. — A  wide  stretch  of  fallow  ground  recently 
sown  with  wheat,  and  frozen  to  iron  hardness.  Three 
large  birds  walking  about  thereon,  and  wistfully  eyeing 
the  surface.  Wind  keen  from  north-east :  sky  a  dull 
grey. 

(TRIOLET) 

Rook. — Throughout  the  field  I  find  no  grain ; 

The  cruel  frost  encrusts  the  cornland  ! 
Starling. — Aye  :  patient  pecking  now  is  vain 
Throughout  the  field,  I  find  .  .  . 

Rook. —  No  grain  ! 

165 


l66          WINTER    IN    DURNOVER    FIELD 

Pigeon. — Nor  will  be,  comrade,  till  it  rain, 

Or  genial  thawings  loose  the  lorn  land 
Throughout  the  field. 

Rook. —  I  find  no  grain  : 

The  cruel  frost  encrusts  the  cornland  ! 


THE  LAST  CHRYSANTHEMUM 

WHY  should  this  flower  delay  so  long 
To  show  its  tremulous  plumes  ? 
Now  is  the  time  of  plaintive  robin-song, 
When  flowers  are  in  their  tombs. 

Through  the  slow  summer,  when  the  sun 

Called  to  each  frond  and  whorl 
That  all  he  could  for  flowers  was  being  done, 

Why  did  it  not  uncurl  ? 

167 


l68  THE    LAST    CHRYSANTHEMUM 

It  must  have  felt  that  fervid  call 

Although  it  took  no  heed, 
Waking  but  now,  when  leaves  like  corpses  fall, 
And  saps  all  retrocede. 

Too  late  its  beauty,  lonely  thing, 
The  season's  shine  is  spent, 
Nothing  remains  for  it  but  shivering 
In  tempests  turbulent. 

Had  it  a  reason  for  delay, 

Dreaming  in  witlessness 
That  for  a  bloom  so  delicately  gay 

Winter  would  stay  its  stress  ? 

— I  talk  as  if  the  thing  were  born 
With  sense  to  work  its  mind  ; 
Yet  it  is  but  one  mask  of  many  worn 
By  the  Great  Face  behind. 


THE  DARKLING  THRUSH 

I  LEANT  upon  a  coppice  gate 
When  Frost  was  spectre-gray, 
And  Winter's  dregs  made  desolate 

The  weakening  eye  of  day. 
The  tangled  bine-stems  scored  the  sky 

Like  strings  from  broken  lyres, 
And  all  mankind  that  haunted  nigh 

Had  sought  their  household  fires. 
169 


I7O  THE    DARKLING    THRUSH 

The  land's  sharp  features  seemed  to  be 

The  Century's  corpse  outleant, 
His  crypt  the  cloudy  canopy, 

The  wind  his  death-lament. 
The  ancient  pulse  of  germ  and  birth 

Was  shrunken  hard  and  dry, 
And  every  spirit  upon  earth 

Seemed  fervourless  as  I. 


At  once  a  voice  outburst  among 

The  bleak  twigs  overhead 
In  a  full-hearted  evensong 

Of  joy  illimited  ; 
An  aged  thrush,  frail,  gaunt,  and  small, 

In  blast-beruffled  plume, 
Had  chosen  thus  to  fling  his  soul 

Upon  the  growing  gloom. 


So  little  cause  for  carollings 
Of  such  ecstatic  sound 

Was  written  on  terrestrial  things 
Afar  or  nigh  around, 


THE    DARKLING    THRUSH 

That  I  could  think  there  trembled  through 

His  happy  good-night  air 
Some  blessed  Hope,  whereof  he  knew 

And  I  was  unaware. 

December  1900. 


THE  COMET  AT  YALBURY  OR 
YELL'HAM 


IT  bends  far  over  Yell'ham  Plain, 
And  we,  from  YeH'ham  Height, 
Stand  and  regard  its  fiery  train, 
So  soon  to  swim  from  sight. 

II 

It  will  return  long  years  hence,  when 
As  now  its  strange  swift  shine 

Will  fall  on  Yell'ham  ;  but  not  therv 
On  that  sweet  form  of  thine. 


172 


MAD  JUDY 

WHEN  the  hamlet  hailed  a  birth 
Judy  used  to  cry : 
When  she  heard  our  christening  mirth 

She  would  kneel  and  sigh. 
She  was  crazed,  we  knew,  and  we 

Humoured  her  aberrancy. 

173 


174  MAD  JUDY 

When  the  daughters  and  the  sons 

Gathered  them  to  wed, 
And  we  like-intending  ones 

Danced  till  dawn  was  red, 
She  would  rock  and  mutter,  "  More 
Comers  to  this  stony  shore  ! " 

When  old  Headsman  Death  laid  hands 

On  a  babe  or  twain, 
She  would  feast,  and  by  her  brands 

Sing  her  songs  again. 
What  she  liked  we  let  her  do, 
Judy  was  insane,  we  knew. 


A  WASTED  ILLNESS 


T 


HROUGH  vaults  of  pain, 
Enribbed    and    wrought    with 

groins  of  ghastliness, 

I  passed,  and  garish  spectres  moved  my  brain 
To  dire  distress. 

And  hammerings, 
And  quakes,  and  shoots,  and  stifling  hotness, 

blent 
With  webby  waxing  things  and  waning  things 

As  on  I  went. 

175 


176  A    WASTED     ILLNESS 

"  Where  lies  the  end 
To  this  foul  way  ? "   I   asked  with  weakening 

breath. 
Thereon  ahead  I  saw  a  door  extend — 

The  door  to  death. 

It  loomed  more  clear : 

"  At  last ! "  I  cried.    "  The  all-delivering  door !  " 
And  then,  I  knew  not  how,  it  grew  less  near 

Than  theretofore. 

And  back  slid  I 

Along  the  galleries  by  which  I  came, 
And  tediously  the  day  returned,  and  sky, 

And  life — the  same. 

And  all  was  well  : 

Old  circumstance  resumed  its  former  show, 
And  on  my  head  the  dews  of  comfort  fell 

As  ere  my  woe. 

1  roam  anew, 

Scarce  conscious  of  my  late  distress.  .  .  .  And 
yet 


A    WASTED    ILLNESS  177 

Those  backward  steps  through  pain  I  cannot 
view 

Without  regret. 

j 

For  that  dire  train 

Of  waxing  shapes  and  waning,  passed  before, 
And  those  grim  aisles,  must  be  traversed  again 

To  reach  that  door. 


M 


A   MAN 

(IN   MEMORY  OF  H.   OF  M.) 


IN  Casterbridge  there  stood  a  noble  pile, 
Wrought  with  pilaster,  bay,  and  balus- 
trade 

In  tactful  times  when  shrewd  Eliza  swayed. — 
On  burgher,  squire,  and  clown 

It  smiled  the  long  street  down  for  near  a  mile, 

178 


A     MAN  179 

II 

But  evil  days  beset  that  domicile  ; 
The  stately  beauties  of  its  roof  and  wall 
Passed   into    sordid   hands.      Condemned   to 
fall 

Were  cornice,  quoin,  and  cove, 
And  all  that  art  had  wove  in  antique  style. 

ill 

Among  the  hired  dismantlers  entered  there 
One  till  the  moment  of  his  task  untold. 
When     charged    therewith     he     gazed,    and 
answered  bold  : 

"  Be  needy  I  or  no, 
I  will  not  help  lay  low  a  house  so  fair  ! 

IV 

"  Hunger  is  hard.  But  since  the  terms  be 
such — 

No  wage,  or  labour  stained  with  the  dis- 
grace 


l8o  A    MAN 

Of  wrecking  what  our  age  cannot  replace 

To  save  its  tasteless  soul — 
I'll  do  without  your  dole.     Life  is  not  much  ! " 


Dismissed  with  sneers  he  backed  his  tools  and 

went, 
And     wandered     workless ;     for    it    seemed 

unwise 
To  close  with  one  who  dared  to  criticize 

And  carp  on  points  of  taste  : 
To  work  where  they  were  placed  rude  men 

were  meant. 

VI 

Years  whiled.     He  aged,  sank,  sickened,  and 

was  not : 

And  it  was  said,  "  A  man  intractable 
And  curst  is  gone."      None  sighed  to  hear  his 

knell, 

None  sought  his  churchyard-place  ; 
His     name,     his     rugged     face,     were     soon 

forgot. 


A    MAN  l8l 

VII 

The  stones  of  that  fair  hall  lie  far  and  wide, 
And  but  a  few  recall  its  ancient  mould ; 
Yet  when  I  pass  the  spot  I  long  to  hold 

As  truth  what  fancy  saith  : 
"  His    protest    lives    where    deathless    things 
abide!" 


THE   DAME   OF   ATHELHALL 

i 

"QOUL  !     Shall  I  see  thy  face/'  she  said, 

^      "  In  one  brief  hour  ? 
And  away  with  thee  from  a  loveless  bed 
To  a  far-off  sun,  to  a  vine-wrapt  bower, 
And  be  thine  own  unseparated, 

And    challenge     the    world's    white 

glower  ?  " 

182 


THE    DAME    OF    ATHELHALL  183 

II 

She  quickened  her  feet,  and  met  him  where 

They  had  predesigned  : 
And  they  clasped,  and  mounted,  and  cleft  the 

air 

Upon  whirling  wheels  ;  till  the  will  to  bind 
Her  life  with  his  made  the  moments  there 

Efface  the  years  behind. 

in 
Miles  slid,  and  the  sight  of  the  port  upgrew 

As  they  sped  on  ; 

When  slipping  its  bond  the  bracelet  flew 
From  her  fondled  arm.  Replaced  anon, 
Its  cameo  of  the  abjured  one  drew 

Her  musings  thereupon. 

IV 

The  gaud  with  his  image  once  had  been 

A  gift  from  him  : 

And  so  it  was  that  its  carving  keen 
Refurbished  memories  wearing  dim, 
Which  set  in  her  soul  a  throe  of  teen, 

And  a  tear  on  her  lashes'  brim. 


184  THE    DAME     OF    ATHELHALL 

V 

"  I  may  not  go  ! "  she  at  length  upspake, 
"Thoughts  call  me  back — 

I  would  still  lose  all  for  your  dear,  dear  sake  ; 

My  heart  is  thine,  friend  !     But  my  track 

I  home  to  Athelhall  must  take 

To  hinder  household  wrack  ! " 

VI 

He  appealed.    But  they  parted,  weak  and  wan; 

And  he  left  the  shore  ; 
His  ship  diminished,  was  low,  was  gone  ; 
And  she  heard  in  the  waves  as  the   daytide 

wore, 

And  read  in  the  leer  of  the  sun  that  shone, 
That  they  parted  for  evermore. 

VII 

She  homed  as  she  came,  at  the  dip  of  eve 

On  Athel  Coomb 

Regaining  the  Hall  she  had  sworn  to  leave  .  .  . 
The  house  was  soundless  as  a  tomb, 
And  she  entered  her  chamber,  there  to  grieve 

Lone,  kneeling,  in  the  gloom. 


THE    DAME    OF    ATHELHALL  185 

VIII 

From  the  lawn  without  rose  her  husband'svoice 

To  one  his  friend  : 

"  Another  her  Love,  another  my  choice, 
Her  going  is  good.     Our  conditions  mend  ; 
In  a  change  of  mates  we  shall  both  rejoice ; 

I  hoped  that  it  thus  might  end  ! 

IX 

"  A  quick  divorce  ;  she  will  make  him  hers, 

And  I  wed  mine. 

So  Time  rights  all  things  in  long,  long  years — 
Or  rather  she,  by  her  bold  design  ! 
I  admire  a  woman  no  balk  deters  : 

She  has  blessed  my  life,  in  fine. 

x 

"  I  shall  build  new  rooms  for  my  new  true 
bride, 

Let  the  bygone  be  : 

By  now,  no  doubt,  she  has  crossed  the  tide 
With  the  man  to  her  mind.     Far  happier  she 
In  some  warm  vineland  by  his  side 

Than  ever  she  was  with  me." 


THE    SEASONS    OF    HER    YEAR 


WINTER  is  white  on  turf  and  tree, 
And  birds  are  fled ; 
But  summer  songsters  pipe  to  me, 

And  petals  spread, 
For  what  I  dreamt  of  secretly 
His  lips  have  said  ! 

186 


THE    SEASONS    OF    HER    YEAR  1 87 

II 

O  'tis  a  fine  May  morn,  they  say, 

And  blooms  have  blown  ; 
But  wild  and  wintry  is  my  day, 

My  birds  make  moan  ; 
For  he  who  vowed  leaves  me  to  pay 

Alone — alone  ! 


THE    MILKMAID 


u 


NDER  a  daisied  bank 
There  stands  a  rich  red  rumina- 
ting cow, 

And  hard  against  her  flank 
A  cotton-hooded  milkmaid  bends  her  brow. 


The  flowery  river-ooze 
Upheaves  and  falls  ;  the  milk  purrs  in  the  pail; 

Few  pilgrims  but  would  choose 
The  peace  of  such  a  life  in  such  a  vale. 


THE    MILKMAID  189 

The  maid  breathes  words — to  vent, 
It  seems,  her  sense  of  Nature's  scenery, 

Of  whose  life,  sentiment, 
And  essence,  very  part  itself  is  she. 

She  bends  a  glance  of  pain, 
And,  at  a  moment,  lets  escape  a  tear ; 

Is  it  that  passing  train, 
Whose  alien  whirr  offends  her  country  ear  ? — 

Nay  !  Phyllis  does  not  dwell 
On  visual  and  familiar  things  like  these  ; 

What  moves  her  is  the  spell 
Of  inner  themes  and  inner  poetries  : 

Could  but  by  Sunday  morn 
Her  gay  new  gown  come,  meads  might  dry  to 
dun, 

Trains  shriek  till  ears  were  torn, 
If  Fred  would  not  prefer  that  Other  One. 


THE    LEVELLED    CHURCHYARD 

PASSENGER,  pray  list  and  catch 
Our  sighs  and  piteous  groans, 
Half  stifled  in  this  jumbled  patch 

Of  wrenched  memorial  stones  ! 

"  We  late-lamented,  resting  here, 
Are  mixed  to  human  jam, 
And  each  to  each  exclaims  in  fear, 

'  I  know  not  which  I  am  ! ' 

190 


THE    LEVELLED     CHURCHYARD          19! 

"  The  wicked  people  have  annexed 

The  verses  on  the  good ; 
A  roaring  drunkard  sports  the  text 

Teetotal  Tommy  should  ! 

"  Where  we  are  huddled  none  can  trace, 

And  if  our  names  remain, 
They  pave  some  path  or  p — ing  place 

Where  we  have  never  lain  ! 

"  There's  not  a  modest  maiden  elf 

But  dreads  the  final  Trumpet, 

Lest  half  of  her  should  rise  herself, 

And  half  some  local  strumpet ! 

"  From  restorations  of  Thy  fane, 

From  smoothings  of  Thy  sward, 

From  zealous  Churchmen's  pick  and  plane, 
Deliver  us  O  Lord  !     Amen  !  " 


1882. 


THE    RUINED    MAID 

"  /""X    'MELIA,  my  dear,  this  does  every- 

\^ /         thing  crown  ! 

Who  could  have  supposed  I  should  meet  you 

in  Town  ? 
And  whence  such  fair  garments,  such  pros- 

peri-ty  ?  "— 

"  O  didn't  you  know  I'd  been  ruined  ? "  said 
i 


THE    RUINED    MAID  193 

— "You  left  us  in  tatters,  without  shoes   or 

socks, 
Tired  of  digging  potatoes,  and  spudding  up 

docks ; 
And   now    you've   gay   bracelets   and   bright 

feathers  three  ! " — 
"  Yes  :  that's  how  we  dress  when  we're  ruined," 

said  she. 

— "At  home   in  the  barton  you   said    'thee' 

and  '  thou,' 
And  '  thik  oon,'  and  '  theas  oon/  and  '  t'other ' ; 

but  now 
Your   talking    quite    fits    ;ee    for    high    com- 

pa-ny  !" — 
"  Some  polish  is  gained  with  one's  ruin,"  said 

she. 

— "Your  hands   were    like    paws   then,  your 

face  blue  and  bleak, 

But  now  I'm  bewitched  by  your  delicate  cheek, 
And  your  little  gloves  fit  as  on  any  la-dy  ! " — 
"  We  never  do  work  when  we're  ruined,"  said 

she. 

N 


194  THE    RUINED    MAID 

— "You  used  to  call  home -life  a  hag-ridden 

dream, 
And    you'd    sigh,   and    you'd   sock ;    but   at 

present  you  seem 

To  know  not  of  megrims  or  melancho-ly  !" — 
"True.     There's  an  advantage  in  ruin/'  said 

she. 

— "  I  wish  I  had  feathers,  a  fine  sweeping  gown, 
And  a  delicate   face,  and  could  strut  about 

Town  !  "- 
"  My  dear — a  raw  country  girl,  such  as  you 

be, 
Isn't  equal  to  that.     You  ain't  ruined,"  said  she. 

WESTBOURNE  PARK  VILLAS,  1866. 


THE  RESPECTABLE  BURGHER 


ON  "THE  HIGHER  CRITICISM" 


SINCE  Reverend  Doctors  now  declare 
That  clerks  and  people  must  prepare 
To  doubt  if  Adam  ever  were  ; 
To  hold  the  flood  a  local  scare ; 
To  argue,  though  the  stolid  stare, 
That  everything  had  happened  ere 
The  prophets  to  its  happening  sware  ; 
That  David  was  no  giant-slayer, 

Nor  one  to  call  a  God-obeyer 

195 


196  THE    RESPECTABLE    BURGHER 

In  certain  details  we  could  spare, 

But  rather  was  a  debonair 

Shrewd  bandit,  skilled  as  banjo-player  : 

That  Solomon  sang  the  fleshly  Fair, 

And  gave  the  Church  no  thought  whate'er ; 

That  Esther  with  her  royal  wear, 

And  Mordecai,  the  son  of  Jair, 

And  Joshua's  triumphs,  Job's  despair, 

And  Balaam's  ass's  bitter  blare  ; 

Nebuchadnezzar's  furnace-flare, 

And  Daniel  and  the  den  affair, 

And  other  stories  rich  and  rare, 

Were  writ  to  make  old  doctrine  wear 

Something  of  a  romantic  air  : 

That  the  Nain  widow's  only  heir, 

And  Lazarus  with  cadaverous  glare 

(As  done  in  oils  by  Piombo's  care) 

Did  not  return  from  Sheol's  lair  : 

That  Jael  set  a  fiendish  snare, 

That  Pontius  Pilate  acted  square, 

That  never  a  sword  cut  Malchus'  ear  ; 

And  (but  for  shame  I  must  forbear) 

That did  not  reappear  !  .  .  . 


THE    RESPECTABLE    BURGHER 

— Since  thus  they  hint,  nor  turn  a  hair, 
All  churchgoing  will  I  forswear, 
And  sit  on  Sundays  in  my  chair, 
And  read  that  moderate  man  Voltaire. 


ARCHITECTURAL   MASKS 


THERE  is  a  house  with  ivied  walls, 
And  mullioned  windows  worn  and 

old, 

And  the  long  dwellers  in  those  halls 
Have  souls  that  know  but  sordid  calls, 
And  daily  dote  on  gold. 


ARCHITECTURAL    MASKS  199 

II 

In  blazing  brick  and  plated  show 
Not  far  away  a  "villa"  gleams, 
And  here  a  family  few  may  know, 
With  book  and  pencil,  viol  and  bow, 
Lead  inner  lives  of  dreams. 

in 

The  philosophic  passers  say, 
"  See  that  old  mansion  mossed  and  fair, 
Poetic  souls  therein  are  they  : 
And  O  that  gaudy  box  !     Away, 
You  vulgar  people  there." 


THE  TENANT-FOR-LIFE 

THE  sun  said,  watching  my  watering-pot : 
"  Some  morn  you'll  pass  away  ; 
These  flowers  and  plants  I  parch  up  hot — 
Who'll  water  them  that  day  ? 

"  Those  banks  and  beds  whose  shape  your  eye 

Has  planned  in  line  so  true, 
New  hands  will  change,  unreasoning  why 

Such  shape  seemed  best  to  you. 


THE    TENANT-FOR-LIFE  2OI 

"  Within  your  house  will  strangers  sit, 
And  wonder  how  first  it  came ; 

They'll  talk  of  their  schemes  for  improving  it, 
And  will  not  mention  your  name. 

"  They'll  care  not  how,  or  when,  or  at  what 
You  sighed,  laughed,  suffered  here, 

Though  you  feel  more  in  an  hour  of  the  spot 
Than  they  will  feel  in  a  year. 

"  As  I  look  on  at  you  here,  now, 

Shall  I  look  on  at  these  ; 
But  as  to  our  old  times,  avow 

No  knowledge — hold  my  peace  !  .  .  . 

"  O  friend,  it  matters  not,  I  say ; 

Bethink  ye,  I  have  shined 
On  nobler  ones  than  you,  and  they 

Are  dead  men  out  of  mind  !  " 


THE    KING'S   EXPERIMENT 

IT  was  a  wet  wan  hour  in  spring, 
And   Nature   met  King   Doom  beside  a 

lane, 

Wherein  Hodge  trudged,  all  blithely  ballading 
The  Mother's  smiling  reign. 

"  Why  warbles  he  that  skies  are  fair 
And  coombs  alight,"  she  cried,  "and  fallows 

gay, 

When  I  have  placed  no  sunshine  in  the  air 
Or  glow  on  earth  to-day  ?  " 


THE    KINGS    EXPERIMENT  2O3 

"  Tis  in  the  comedy  of  things 
That   such    should  be,"  returned   the  one  of 

Doom  ; 

"  Charge  now  the  scene  with  brightest  blazon- 
ings, 
And  he  shall  call  them  gloom." 

She  gave  the  word  :  the  sun  outbroke, 
All  Froomside   shone,   the   hedgebirds  raised 

a  song ; 

And  later  Hodge,  upon  the  midday  stroke, 
Returned  the  lane  along, 

Low  murmuring  :  "  O  this  bitter  scene, 
And     thrice     accurst     horizon     hung    with 

gloom  ! 

How  deadly  like  this  sky,  these  fields,  these 
treen, 

To  trappings  of  the  tomb  ! " 

The  Beldame  then  :  "  The  fool  and  blind  ! 
Such    mad  .  perverseness    who    may    appre- 
hend ?  "— 


2O4  THE    KING  S    EXPERIMENT 

"  Nay ;    there's  no  madness  in  it ;  them  shalt 
find 
Thy  law  there,"  said  her  friend. 

"  When  Hodge  went  forth  'twas  to  his  Love, 
To  make  her,  ere  this  eve,  his  wedded  prize, 
And  Earth,  despite  the  heaviness  above, 
Was  bright  as  Paradise. 

"  But  I  sent  on  my  messenger, 
With  cunning  arrows  poisonous  and  keen, 
To  take  forthwith  her  laughing  life  from  her, 
And  dull  her  little  een, 

"  And  white  her  cheek,  and  still  her  breath, 
Ere  her  too  buoyant  Hodge  had  reached  her 

side  ; 

So,  when  he  came,  he  clasped  her  but  in  death, 
And  never  as  his  bride. 

"  And  there's  the  humour,  as  I  said ; 
Thy  dreary  dawn  he  saw  as  gleaming  gold, 
And  in  thy  glistening  green  and  radiant  red 
Funereal  gloom  and  cold." 


THE    TREE 

AN    OLD    MAN'S    STORY 


ITS  roots  are  bristling  in  the  air 
Like  some  mad  Earth-god's  spiny  hair  ; 
The  loud  south-wester's  swell  and  yell 
Smote  it  at  midnight,  and  it  fell. 
Thus  ends  the  tree 
Where  Some  One  sat  with  me. 


2O6  THE    TREE 

II 

Its  boughs,  which  none  but  darers  trod, 
A  child  may  step  on  from  the  sod, 
And  twigs  that  earliest  met  the  dawn 
Are  lit  the  last  upon  the  lawn. 

Cart  off  the  tree 

Beneath  whose  trunk  sat  we  ! 

in 

Yes,  there  we  sat :  she  cooed  content, 
And  bats  ringed  round,  and  daylight  went ; 
The  gnarl,  our  seat,  is  wrenched  and  sunk, 
Prone  that  queer  pocket  in  the  trunk 

Where  lay  the  key 

To  her  pale  mystery. 

iv 

"  Years  back,  within  this  pocket-hole 
I  found,  my  Love,  a  hurried  scrawl 
Meant  not  for  me,"  at  length  said  I ; 
^1  glanced  thereat,  and  let  it  lie  : 

The  words  were  three — 

'  Beloved \  I  agree.' 


THE    TREE  2Oy 

V 

"  Who  placed  it  here  ;  to  what  request 
It  gave  assent,  I  never  guessed. 
Some  prayer  of  some  hot  heart,  no  doubt, 
To  some  coy  maiden  hereabout, 

Just  as,  maybe, 

With  you,  Sweet  Heart,  and  me." 

VI 

She  waited,  till  with  quickened  breath 
She  spoke,  as  one  who  banisheth 
Reserves  that  lovecraft  heeds  so  well, 
To  ease  some  mighty  wish  to  tell : 
"  'Twas  I,"  said  she, 
"  Who  wrote  thus  clinchingly. 

VII 

"  My  lover's  wife — aye,  wife  ! — knew  nought 
Of  what  we  felt,  and  bore,  and  thought.  .  .  . 
He'd  said  :  '  /  wed  with  thee  or  die : 
She  stands  between,  'tis  true.     But  why  ? 

Do  thou  agree. 

And — she  shall  cease  to  be.1 


2O8  THE    TREE 

VIII 

"  How  I  held  back,  how  love  supreme 
Involved  me  madly  in  his  scheme 
Why  should  I  say  ?  .  .  .  I  wrote  assent 
(You  found  it  hid)  to  his  intent.  .  .  . 
She— died.  ...  But  he 
Came  not  to  wed  with  me. 

IX 

"  O  shrink  not,  Love  ! — Had  these  eyes  seen 
But  once  thine  own,  such  had  not  been  ! 
But  we  were  strangers.  .  .  .  Thus  the  plot 
Cleared  passion's  path. — Why  came  he  not 

To  wed  with  me  ?  .  .  . 

He  wived  the  gibbet-tree." 

x 

— Under  that  oak  of  heretofore 
Sat  Sweetheart  mine  with  me  no  more : 
By  many  a  Fiord,  and  Strom,  and  Fleuve 
Have  I  since  wandered.  .  .  .   Soon,  for  love, 

Distraught  went  she — 

'Twas  said  for  love  of  me. 


HER    LATE    HUSBAND 

(KING'S-HINTOCK,  182-.) 

"  T^TO — not  where   I   shall  make   my 
|\|  own ; 

But  dig  his  grave  just  by 
The  woman's  with  the  initialed  stone — 

As  near  as  he  can  lie — 
After  whose  death  he  seemed  to  ail, 

Though  none  considered  whj'. 

"  And  when  I  also  claim  a  nook, 

And  your  feet  tread  me  in, 
Bestow  me,  under  my  old  name, 

Among  my  kith  and  kin, 

209  0 


OF  THE 

UNIVER81T 

OF 


2IO  HER    LATE    HUSBAND 

That  strangers  gazing  may  not  dream 
I  did  a  husband  win." 

"  Widow,  your  wish  shall  be  obeyed  ; 

Though,  thought  I,  certainly 
You'd  lay  him  where  your  folk  are  laid, 

And  your  grave,  too,  will  be, 
As  custom  hath  it ;  you  to  right, 

And  on  the  left  hand  he." 

"  Aye,  sextbn  ;  such  the  Hintock  rule, 
And  none  has  said  it  nay ; 

But  now  it  haps  a  native  here 

Eschews  that  ancient  way  .  .  . 

And  it  may  be,  some  Christmas  night, 
When  angels  walk,  they'll  say  : 

"  '  O  strange  interment !  Civilized  lands 
Afford  few  types  thereof ; 

Here  is  a  man  who  takes  his  rest 
Beside  his  very  Love, 

Beside  the  one  who  was  his  wife 
In  our  sight  up  above  ! '  " 


THE  SELF-UNSEEING 

HERE  is  the  ancient  floor, 
Footworn  and  hollowed  and 
thin, 

Here  was  the  former  door 
Where  the  dead  feet  walked  in. 


212  THE    SELF-UNSEEING 

She  sat  here  in  her  chair, 
Smiling  into  the  fire  ; 
He  who  played  stood  there, 
Bowing  it  higher  and  higher. 

Childlike,  I  danced  in  a  dream  ; 
Blessings  emblazoned  that  day  ; 
Everything  glowed  with  a  gleam  ; 
Yet  we  were  looking  away  ! 


DE    PROFUNDIS 

I 

"  Percussus  sum  sicut  foenum,  et  aruit  cor  meum." 

— Ps.  ci. 

WINTERTIME  nighs  ; 
But    my    bereavement- 
pain 
It  cannot  bring  again  : 

Twice  no  one  dies. 

213 


214  DE    PROFUNDIS 

Flower-petals  flee  ; 
But,  since  it  once  hath  been, 
No  more  that  severing  scene 

Can  harrow  me. 

Birds  faint  in  dread  : 
I  shall  not  lose  old  strength 
In  the  lone  frost's  black  length 

Strength  long  since  fled 

Leaves  freeze  vto  dun  ; 
But  friends  can  not  turn  cold 
This  season  as  of  old 

For  him  with  none. 

Tempests  may  scath  ; 
But  love  can  not  make  smart 
Again  this  year  his  heart 

Who  no  heart  hath. 

Black  is  night's  cope  ; 
But  death  will  not  appal 
One  who,  past  doubtings  all, 

Waits  in  unhope. 


DE    PROFUNDIS 
II 

"  Consider abam  ad  dexteram,  et  videbam ;  et  non  erat 
qui  cognosceret  me.  ...  Non  est  qui  requirat 
animam  meam." — Ps.  cxli. 

WHEN  the  clouds'  swoln  bosoms  echo 
back  the  shouts  of  the  many  and 
strong 

That  things  are  all  as  they  best  may  be,  save  a 
few  to  be  right  ere  long, 


2l6  DE    PROFUNDIS 

And  my  eyes  have  not  the  vision  in  them  to 
discern  what  to  these  is  so  clear, 

The  blot  seems  straightway  in  me  alone  ;  one 
better  he  were  not  here. 


The  stout  upstanders  say,  All's  well  with  us  : 

ruers  have  nought  to  rue  ! 
And  what  the  potent  say  so  oft,  can  it  fail  to 

be  somewhat  true  ? 
Breezily  go  they,  breezily  come  ;   their   dust 

smokes  around  their  career, 
Till  I  think  I  am  one  born  out  of  due  time 

who  has  no  calling  here. 


Their  dawns  bring  lusty  joys,  it  seems  ;  their 

eves  exultance  sweet ; 
Our  times  are  blessed  times,  they  cry  :    Life 

shapes  it  as  is  most  meet, 
And  nothing  is  much  the  matter  ;    there  are 

many  smiles  to  a  tear  ; 
Then  what  is  the  matter  is   I,   I  say.     Why 

should  such  an  one  be  here  ?  . 


DE    PROFUNDIS  2iy 

Let  him  to  whose   ears  the  low-voiced  Best 

seems  stilled  by  the  clash  of  the  First, 
Who  holds  that  if  way  to  the  Better  there  be,  it 

exacts  a  full  look  at  the  Worst, 
Who  feels  that  delight  is  a  delicate  growth 

cramped  by  crookedness,  custom,  and  fear, 
Get  him  up  and  be  gone  as  one  shaped  awry; 

he  disturbs  the  order  here. 

1895-96. 


DE    PROFUNDIS 

III 

"  Heu  mihi,  quia  incolatus  meus  prolongatus  est !  Habitavi 
cum  habitantibus  Cedar  ;  multum  incola  fuit  anima 
mea." — Ps.  cxix. 

THERE   have   been   times   when    I    well 
might  have  passed  and  the   ending 
have  come — 
Points  in  my  path  when  the  dark  might  have 

stolen  on  me,  artless,  unrueing— 
218 


DE    PROFUNDIS  219 

Ere  I  had  learnt  that  the  world  was  a  welter 

of  futile  doing  : 
Such  had  been  times  when  I  well  might  have 

passed,  and  the  ending  have  come  ! 


Say,  on  the  noon  when  the  half-sunny  hours 

told  that  April  was  nigh, 
And   I  upgathered  and  cast  forth  the  snow 

from  the  crocus-border, 
Fashioned    and    furbished    the    soil    into    a 

summer-seeming  order, 
Glowing  in  gladsome  faith  that  I  quickened 

the  year  thereby. 


Or  on  that  loneliest  of  eves  when  afar  and  be- 
nighted we  stood, 

She  who  upheld  me  and  I,  in  the  midmost 
of  Egdon  together, 

Confident  I  in  her  watching  and  ward  through 
the  blackening  heather, 

Deeming  her  matchless  in  might  and  with 
measureless  scope  endued. 


22O  DE    PROFUNDIS 

Or  on  that  winter-wild  night  when,  reclined  by 

the  chimney-nook  quoin, 
Slowly  a  drowse  overgat  me,  the  smallest  and 

feeblest  of  folk  there, 
Weak  from   my  baptism  of   pain  ;    when   at 

times  and  anon  I  awoke  there — 
Heard  of  a  world  wheeling  on,  with  no  listing 

or  longing  to  join. 


Even  then  !  while  unweeting  that  vision  could 

vex  or  that  knowledge  could  numb, 
That   sweets  to  the  mouth  in  the  belly  are 

bitter,  and  tart,  and  untoward, 
Then,  on  some  dim-coloured  scene  should  my 

briefly  raised  curtain  have  lowered, 
Then  might  the  Voice  that  is  law  have  said 

"  Cease  !  "  and  the  ending  have  come. 


1896. 


THE   CHURCH-BUILDER 


THE  church  flings  forth  a  battled  shade 
i|     Over  the  moon-blanched  sward ; 
The  church  ;  my  gift ;  whereto  I  paid 
My  all  in  hand  and  hoard  : 
Lavished  my  gains 
With  stintless  pains 
To  glorify  the  Lord. 


222  THE    CHURCH-BUILDER 

II 

I  squared  the  broad  foundations  in 

Of  ashlared  masonry  ; 
I  moulded  mullions  thick  and  thin, 
Hewed  fillet  and  ogee  : 
I  circleted 

Each  sculptured  head 
With  nimb  and  canopy. 

in 

I  called  in  many  a  craftsmaster 

To  fix  emblazoned  glass, 
To  figure  Cross  and  Sepulchre 
On  dossal,  boss,  and  brass. 
My  gold  all  spent, 
My  jewels  went 
To  gem  the  cups  of  Mass. 

IV 

I  borrowed  deep  to  carve  the  screen 
And  raise  the  ivoried  Rood  ; 

I  parted  with  my  small  demesne 
To  make  my  owings  good. 


THE    CHURCH-BUILDER  223 

Heir-looms  unpriced 
I  sacrificed, 
Until  debt-free  I  stood. 


So  closed  the  task.     "  Deathless  the  Creed 

Here  substanced  ! "  said  my  soul : 
"  I  heard  me  bidden  to  this  deed, 
And  straight  obeyed  the  call. 
Illume  this  fane, 
That  not  in  vain 
I  build  it,  Lord  of  all ! " 


VI 

But,  as  it  chanced  me,  then  and  there 

Did  dire  misfortunes  burst ; 
My  home  went  waste  for  lack  of  care, 
My  sons  rebelled  and  curst ; 
Till  I  confessed 
That  aims  the  best 
Were  looking  like  the  worst. 


224  THE    CHURCH-BUILDER 

VII 

Enkindled  by  my  votive  work 

No  burning  faith  I  find  ; 
The  deeper  thinkers  sneer  and  smirk, 
And  give  my  toil  no  mind ; 
From  nod  and  wink 
I  read  they  think 
That  I  am  fool  and  blind. 


VIII 

My  gift  to  God  seems  futile,  quite ; 
The  world  moves  as  erstwhile  ; 
And  powerful  wrong  on  feeble  right 
Tramples  in  olden  style. 
My  faith  burns  down, 
I  see  no  crown  ; 
But  Cares,  and  Griefs,  and  Guile. 


IX 

So  now,  the  remedy  ?     Yea,  this  : 
I  gently  swing  the  door 


THE    CHURCH-BUILDER  225 

Here,  of  my  fane — no  soul  to  wis — 
And  cross  the  patterned  floor 

To  the  rood-screen 

That  stands  between 
The  nave  and  inner  chore. 


The  rich  red  windows  dim  the  moon, 

But  little  light  need  I ; 
I  mount  the  prie-dieu,  lately  hewn 
From  woods  of  rarest  dye  ; 
Then  from  below 
My  garment,  so, 
I  draw  this  cord,  and  tie 

XI 

One  end  thereof  around  the  beam 

Midway  'twixt  Cross  and  truss  : 
I  noose   he  nethermost  extreme, 
And  in  ten  seconds  thus 
I  journey  hence — 
To  that  land  whence 

No  rumour  reaches  us. 

p 


226  THE    CHURCH-BUILDER 

XII 

Well :  Here  at  morn  they'll  light  on  one 

Dangling  in  mockery 
Of  what  he  spent  his  substance  on 
Blindly  and  uselessly  !  .  .  . 
"  He  might/'  they'll  say, 
11  Have  built,  some  way, 
A  cheaper  gallows-tree  !  " 


THE  LOST  PYX 

A    MEDIEVAL    LEGEND1 

SOME  say  the  spot   is   banned;  that  the 
pillar  Cross-and-Hand 
Attests  to  a  deed  of  hell ; 
But  of  else  than  of  bale  is  the  mystic  tale 
That  ancient  Vale-folk  tell. 

1  On  a  lonely  table-land  above  the  Vale  of  Blackmore,  between 
High-Stoy  and  Bubb-Down  hills,  and  commanding  in  clear 
weather  views  that  extend  from  the  English  to  the  Bristol 
Channel,  stands  a  pillar,  apparently  mediaeval,  called  Cross-and- 
Hand  of  Christ-in-Hand.  Among  other  stories  of  its  origin  a 

local  tradition  preserves  the  one  here  given. 
227 


228  THE    LOST    PYX 

Ere  Cernel's  Abbey  ceased  hereabout  there 

dwelt  a  priest, 
(In  later  life  sub-prior 
Of  the  brotherhood  there,  whose  bones  are 

now  bare 
In  the  field  that  was  Cernel  choir). 

One  night  in  his  cell  at  the  foot  of  yon  dell 
The  priest  heard  a  frequent  cry  : 

"  Go,  father,  in  haste  to  the  cot  on  the  waste, 
And  shrive  a  man  waiting  to  die." 

Said  the  priest  in  a  shout  to  the  caller  without, 
"  The  night  howls,  the  tree-trunks  bow ; 

One  may  barely  by  day  track  so  rugged  a  way, 
And  can  I  then  do  so  now  ?  " 

No  further  word  from  the  dark  was  heard, 
And  the  priest  moved  never  a  limb  ; 

And  he  slept  and  dreamed ;  till  a  Visage  seemed 
To  frown  from  Heaven  at  him. 

In  a  sweat  he  arose  ;  and  the  storm  shrieked 

shrill, 
And  smote  as  in  savage  joy  ; 


THE    LOST    PYX  229 

While  High-Stoy  trees  twanged  to  Bubb-Down 

Hill, 
And  Bubb-Down  to  High-Stoy. 

There  seemed  not  a  holy  thing  in  hail, 

Nor  shape  of  light  or  love, 
From  the  Abbey  north  of  Blackmore  Vale 

To  the  Abbey  south  thereof. 

Yet   he   plodded    thence    through    the    dark 

immense, 

And  with  many  a  stumbling  stride  • 
Through  copse  and  briar  climbed  nigh  and 

nigher 
To  the  cot  and  the  sick  man's  side. 

When   he  would  have    unslung    the   Vessels 
uphung. 

To  his  arm  in  the  steep  ascent, 
He  made  loud  moan  :  the  Pyx  was  gone 

Of  the  Blessed  Sacrament. 

Then  in  dolorous  dread  he  beat  his  head  : 

"  No  earthly  prize  or  pelf 
Is  the  thing  I've  lost  in  tempest  tossed, 

But  the  Body  of  Christ  Himself ! " 


23O  THE    LOST    PYX 

He  thought  of  the  Visage  his  dream  revealed, 
And  turned  towards  whence  he  came, 

Hands  groping  the  ground  along  foot-track 

and  field, 
And  head  in  a  heat  of  shame. 

Till  here  on  the  hill,  betwixt  vill  and  vill, 

He  noted  a  clear  straight  ray 
Stretching  down  from  the  sky  to  a  spot  hard  by, 

Which  shone  with  the  light  of  day. 

And  gathered  around  the  illumined  ground 
Were  common  beasts  and  rare, 

All  kneeling  at  gaze,  and  in  pause  profound 
Attent  on  an  object  there. 

'Twas  the  Pyx,  unharmed  'mid  the  circling  rows 

Of  Blackmore's  hairy  throng, 
Whereof  were  oxen,  sheep,  and  does, 

And  hares  from  the  brakes  among  ; 

And  badgers  grey,  and  conies  keen, 

And  squirrels  of  the  tree, 
And  many  a  member  seldom  seen 

Of  Nature's  family. 


THE    LOST    PYX  231 

The  ireful  winds  that  scoured  and  swept 
Through  coppice,  clump,  and  dell, 

Within  that  holy  circle  slept 
Calm  as  in  hermit's  cell. 

Then  the  priest  bent  likewise  to  the  sod 
And  thanked  the  Lord  of  Love, 

And  Blessed  Mary,  Mother  of  God, 
And  all  the  saints  above. 

And  turning  straight  with  his  priceless  freight, 

He  reached  the  dying  one, 
Whose  passing  sprite  had  been  stayed  for  the 
rite 

Without  which  bliss  hath  none. 

And  when  by  grace  the  priest  won  place, 

And  served  the  Abbey  well, 
He  reared  this  stone  to  mark  where  shone 

That  midnight  miracle. 


TESS'S   LAMENT 


1  WOULD  that  folk  forgot  me  quite, 
Forgot  me  quite  ! 
I  would  that  I  could  shrink  from  sight, 

And  no  more  see  the  sun. 
Would  it  were  time  to  say  farewell, 
To  claim  my  nook,  to  need  my  knell, 
Time  for  them  all  to  stand  and  tell 

Of  my  day's  work  as  done. 

232 


TESS  S     LAMENT  233 

II 

Ah  !  dairy  where  I  lived  so  long, 

I  lived  so  long ; 
Where  I  would  rise  up  stanch  and  strong, 

And  lie  down  hopefully. 
'Twas  there  within  the  chimney-seat 
He  watched  me  to  the  clock's  slow  beat — 
Loved  me,  and  learnt  to  call  me  sweet, 

And  whispered  words  to  me. 

in 
And  now  he's  gone  ;  and  now  he's  gone  ;  .  . 

And  now  he's  gone  ! 
The  flowers  we  potted  p'rhaps  are  thrown 

To  rot  upon  the  farm. 
And  where  we  had  our  supper-fire 
May  now  grow  nettle,  dock,  and  briar, 
And  all  the  place  be  mould  and  mire 
So  cozy  once  and  warm. 

IV 

And  it  was  I  who  did  it  all, 

Who  did  it  all ; 
'Twas  I  who  made  the  blow  to  fall 


234  TESS'S    LAMENT 

<• 

On  him  who  thought  no  guile. 
Well,  it  is  finished — past,  and  he 
Has  left  me  to  my  misery, 
And  I  must  take  my  Cross  on  me 

For  wronging  him  awhile. 

v 
How  gay  we  looked  that  day  we  wed, 

That  day  we  wed ! 
"  May  joy  be  with  ye  !  "  all  o'm  said 

A  standing  by  the  durn. 
I  wonder  what  they  say  o's  now, 
And  if  they  know  my  lot ;  and  how 
She  feels  who  milks  my  favourite  cow, 
And  takes  my  place  at  churn  ! 

VI 

It  wears  me  out  to  think  of  it, 

To  think  of  it ; 
I  cannot  bear  my  fate  as  writ, 

I'd  have  my  life  unbe ; 
Would  turn  my  memory  to  a  blot, 
Make  every  relic  of  me  rot, 
My  doings  be  as  they  were  not, 

And  what  they've  brought  to  me ! 


THE   SUPPLANTER 

A  TALE 

I 

HE  bends  his  travel-tarnished  feet 
To  where  she  wastes  in  clay 
From  day-dawn  until  eve  he  fares 

Along  the  wintry  way  ; 
From  day-dawn  until  eve  repairs 
Unto  her  mound  to  pray. 


235 


236  THE    SUPPLANTER 

II 

"  Are  these  the  gravestone  shapes  that  meet 
My  forward-straining  view  ? 

Or  forms  that  cross  a  window-blind 
In  circle,  knot,  and  queue  : 

Gay  forms,  that  cross  and  whirl  and  wind 
To  music  throbbing  through  ?  " — 

in 

"The  Keeper  of  the  Field  of  Tombs" 
Dwells  by  its  gateway-pier  ; 

He  celebrates  with  feast  and  dance 

His  daughter's  twentieth  year  : 

He  celebrates  with  wine  of  France 
The  birthday  of  his  dear."— 

IV 

"  The  gates  are  shut  when  evening  glooms  : 
Lay  down  your  wreath,  sad  wight ; 

To-morrow  is  a  time  more  fit 

For  placing  flowers  aright : 

The  morning  is  the  time  for  it ; 

Come,  wake  with  us  to-night !  " — 


THE    SUPPLANTER 


He  grounds  his  wreath,  and  enters  in, 

And  sits,  and  shares  their  cheer. — 

"  I  fain  would  foot  with  you,  young  man, 
Before  all  others  here  ; 

I  fain  would  foot  it  for  a  span 
With  such  a  cavalier  !  " 

VI 

She  coaxes,  clasps,  nor  fails  to  win 
His  first-unwilling  hand  : 

The  merry  music  strikes  its  staves, 
The  dancers  quickly  band  ; 

And  with  the  damsel  of  the  graves 
He  duly  takes  his  stand. 

VII 

"  You  dance  divinely,  stranger  swain, 
Such  grace  I've  never  known. 

O  longer  stay  !     Breathe  not  adieu 
And  leave  me  here  alone  ! 

O  longer  stay  :  to  her  be  true 

Whose  heart  is  all  your  own !  " — 


THE    SUPPLANTER 


VIII 

"  I  mark  a  phantom  through  the  pane, 

That  beckons  in  despair, 
Its  mouth  all  drawn  with  heavy  moan  — 

Her  to  whom  once  I  sware  !  "  — 
"  Nay  ;  'tis  the  lately  carven  stone 

Of  some  strange  girl  laid  there  !  "  — 

IX 

"  I  see  white  flowers  upon  the  floor 

Betrodden  to  a  clot  ; 
My  wreath  were  they  ?  "  —  "  Nay  ;  love  me  much 

Swear  you'll  forget  me  not  ! 
Twas  but  a  wreath  !     Full  many  such 

Are  brought  here  and  forgot." 


x 

The  watches  of  the  night  grow  hoar, 

He  rises  ere  the  sun  ; 
"  Now  could  I  kill  thee  here  !  "  he  says, 

"  For  winning  me  from  one 
Who  ever  in  her  living  days 

Was  pure  as  cloistered  nun  !  " 


THE    SUPPLANTER  239 

XI 

She  cowers,  and  he  takes  his  track 

Afar  for  many  a  mile, 
For  evermore  to  be  apart 

From  her  who  could  beguile 
His  senses  by  her  burning  heart, 

And  win  his  love  awhile. 

XII 

A  year  :  and  he  is  travelling  back 
To  her  who  wastes  in  clay  ; 

From  day-dawn  until  eve  he  fares 
Along  the  wintry  way, 

From  day-dawn  until  eve  repairs 
Unto  her  mound  to  pray. 

XIII 

And  there  he  sets  him  to  fulfil 

His  frustrate  first  intent : 
And  lay  upon  her  bed,  at  last, 

The  offering  earlier  meant : 
When,  on  his  stooping  figure,  ghast 

And  haggard  eyes  are  bent. 


240  THE    SUPPLANTER 

XIV 

"  O  surely  for  a  little  while 

You  can  be  kind  to  me  ! 
For  do  you  love  her,  do  you  hate, 

She  knows  not — cares  not  she  : 
Only  the  living  feel  the  weight 

Of  loveless  misery  ! 

xv 

"  I  own  my  sin  ;  I've  paid  its  cost, 

Being  outcast,  shamed,  and  bare  : 

I  give  you  daily  my  whole  heart, 
Your  babe  my  tender  care, 

I  pour  you  prayers ;  and  aye  to  part 
Is  more  than  I  can  bear  ! " 

XVI 

He  turns — remorseless,  passion-tossed  : 
"  I  know  you  not  !  "  he  cries, 

"  Nor  know  your  child.     I  knew  this  maid, 
But  she's  in  Paradise  I " 

And  swiftly  in  the  winter  shade 

He  breaks  from  her  and  flies. 


IMITATIONS,   ETC. 


SAPPHIC  FRAGMENT 

"  Thou  shall  be — Nothing." — OMAR  KHAYYAM. 

"  Tombless,  with  no  remembrance." — W.  SHAKESPEARE. 

DEAD  shall  thou  lie  ;  and  nought 
Be  told  of  thee  or  thought, 
For  thou  hast  plucked  not  of  the  Muses'  tree  : 
And  even  in  Hades'  halls 
Amidst  thy  fellow-thralls 

No  friendly  shade  thy  shade  shall  company  ! 

243 


CATULLUS:  XXXI 

(After  passing  Sirmione,  April  1887.) 

SI  RMIO,  thou  dearest  dear  of  strands 
That  Neptune  strokes  in  lake  and  sea, 
With  what  high  joy  from  stranger  lands 
Doth  thy  old  friend  set  foot  on  thee  ! 
Yea,  barely  seems  it  true  to  me 
That  no  Bithynia  holds  me  now, 
But  calmly  and  assuringly 

Around  me  stretchest  homely  Thou. 

244 


CATULLUS  I    XXXI  245 

Is  there  a  scene  more  sweet  than  when 
Our  clinging  cares  are  undercast, 
And,  worn  by  alien  moils  and  men, 
The  long  untrodden  sill  repassed, 
We  press  the  kindly  couch  at  last, 
And  find  a  full  repayment  there  ? 
Then  hail,  sweet  Sirmio  ;  thou  that  wast, 
And  art,  mine  own  unrivalled  Fair  ! 


AFTER  SCHILLER 

KNIGHT,  a  true  sister-love 
This  heart  retains  ; 
Ask  me  no  other  love, 
That  way  lie  pains  ! 

Calm  must  I  view  thee  come, 

Calm  see  thee  go  ; 
Tale-telling  tears  of  thine 

I  must  not  know  ! 


246 


SONG  FROM  HEINE 

I   SCANNED   her  picture  dreaming, 
Till  each  dear  line  and  hue 
Was  imaged,  to  my  seeming, 
As  if  it  lived  anew. 


Her  lips  began  to  borrow 

Their  former  wondrous  smile  ; 

247 


248  SONG    FROM    HEINE 

Her  fair  eyes,  faint  with  sorrow, 
Grew  sparkling  as  erstwhile. 

Such  tears  as  often  ran  not 

Ran  then,  my  love,  for  thee  ; 

And  O,  believe  I  cannot 

That  thou  are  lost  to  me ! 


FROM  VICTOR  HUGO 

CHILD,  were  I  king,  I'd  yield  my  royal 
rule, 

My  chariot,  sceptre,  vassal-service  due, 
My  crown,  my  porphyry-basined  waters  cool, 
My  fleets,  whereto  the  sea  is  but  a  pool, 
For  a  glance  from  you  ! 

Love,  were  I  God,  the  earth  and  its  heaving 

airs, 

Angels,  the  demons  abject  under  me, 
Vast  chaos  with  its  teeming  womby  lairs, 
Time,  space,  all  would   I   give  —  aye,  upper 

spheres, 

For  a  kiss  from  thee  ! 
249 


CARDINAL    BEMBO'S    EPITAPH 
ON    RAPHAEL 

HERE'S  one  in  whom  Nature  feared — 
faint  at  such  vying — 

Eclipse  while   he    lived,   and    decease  at  his 
dying. 


RETROSPECT 


I    HAVE   LIVED   WITH   SHADES" 

i 

I   HAVE  lived  with  shades  so  long, 
And  talked  to  them  so  oft, 
Since  forth  from  cot  and  croft 
I  went  mankind  among, 

That  sometimes  they 
In  their  dim  style 
Will  pause  awhile 

To  hear  my  say  ; 

253 


254      "  J    HAVE    LIVED    WITH    SHADES 
II 

And  take  me  by  the  hand, 
And  lead  me  through  their  rooms 
In  the  To-be,  where  Dooms 
Half-wove  and  shapeless  stand  : 
And  show  from  there 
The  dwindled  dust 
And  rot  and  rust 
Of  things  that  were. 

in 

"  Now  turn,"  spake  they  to  me 
One  day  :  "  Look  whence  we  came, 
And  signify  his  name 
Who  gazes  thence  at  thee." — 

— "  Nor  name  nor  race 

Know  I,  or  can," 

I  said,  "  Of  man 

So  commonplace. 

IV 

"  He  moves  me  not  at  all ; 
I  note  no  ray  or  jot 


;<  I    HAVE    LIVED    WITH    SHADES  "       255 

Of  rareness  in  his  lot, 
Or  star  exceptional. 

Into  the  dim 

Dead  throngs  around 

He'll  sink,  nor  sound 

Be  left  of  him/' 


"  Yet,"  said  they,  "his  frail  speech, 
Hath  accents  pitched  like  thine — 
Thy  mould  and  his  define 
A  likeness  each  to  each— 

But  go  !     Deep  pain 

Alas,  would  be 

His  name  to  thee, 

And  told  in  vain  ! " 

Feb.  2,  1899. 


O 


MEMORY   AND   I 

MEMORY,  where  is  now  my  youth, 
Who  used  to  say  that  life  was  truth  ?  " 


"  I  saw  him  in  a  crumbled  cot 

Beneath  a  tottering  tree  ; 
That  he  as  phantom  lingers  there 

Is  only  known  to  me." 
256 


MEMORY    AND    I  257 

"  O  Memory,  where  is  now  my  joy, 
Who  lived  with  me  in  sweet  employ  ?  " 

"  I  saw  him  in  gaunt  gardens  lone, 

Where  laughter  used  to  be  ; 
That  he  as  phantom  wanders  there 

Is  known  to  none  but  me." 


"O  Memory,  where  is  now  my  hope, 
Who    charged    with    deeds    my    skill   and 
scope  ?  " 

"  I  saw  her  in  a  tomb  of  tomes, 
Where  dreams  are  wont  to  be ; 

That  she  as  spectre  haunteth  there 
Is  only  known  to  me." 

"  O  Memory,  where  is  now  my  faith, 
One  time  a  champion,  now  a  wraith  ?  " 

"  I  saw  her  in  a  ravaged  aisle, 

Bowed  down  on  bended  knee ; 
That  her  poor  ghost  outflickers  there 

Is  known  to  none  but  me." 

R 


258  MEMORY    AND    I 

"  O  Memory,  where  is  now  my  love, 
That  rayed  me  as  a  god  above  ?  " 

"  1  saw  him  by  an  ageing  shape 
Where  beauty  used  to  be  ; 

That  his  fond  phantom  lingers  there 
Is  only  known  to  me." 


LONG  have  I  framed  weak  phantasies  of 
Thee, 

O  Wilier  masked  and  dumb  ! 
Who  makest  Life  become, — 
By  labouring  ail-unknowingly,  maybe, 

Like  one  whom  reveries  numb. 
359 


260  'ATNOSTOt 

How  much  of  consciousness  informs  Thy  will, 

Thy  biddings,  as  if  blind, 

Of  death-inducing  kind, 
Nought  shows  to  us  ephemeral  ones  who  fill 

But  moments  in  Thy  mind. 

Haply  Thy  ancient  rote-restricted  ways 
Thy  ripening  rule  transcends  ; 
That  listless  effort  tends 

To  grow  percipient  with  advance  of  days, 
And  with  percipience  mends. 

For,  in  unwonted  purlieus,  far  and  nigh, 
At  whiles  or  short  or  long, 
May  be  discerned  a  wrong 

Dying  as  of  self-slaughter  ;  whereat  I 
Do  raise  my  voice  in  song. 


Printed  by  BALLANTYNE,  HANSON  &*  Co. 
Edinburgh  &*  London 


By  the  same  Author 

"WESSEX    POEMS" 

EXTRACTS  FROM  REVIEWS 

"The  untranslatable  'sunt  lacrymse  rerum'  would  serve  as 
a  general  title  for  most  of  Mr.  Hardy's  poems.  .  .  .  Always 
profoundly  impressive  and  often  beautiful  verse.  .  .  .  All 
lovers  of  literature  will  welcome  the  volume  as  a  new  and 
characteristic  expression  of  a  writer  whom  they  have  hitherto 
known  as  one  of  the  two  or  three  living  masters  of  English 
prose." — Daily  News. 

"  Markedly  original  in  conception,  and  none  is  wholly  trite 
in  execution.  .  .  .  The  themes  are  generally  well  chosen,  the 
conception  is  strong,  and  the  versification  marked,  as  a  rule, 
by  ease  of  language  and  a  keen  sense  of  rhythm." — Morning 
Post. 

"Marked  originality  and  high  literary  power.  .  .  .  There  is 
life  and  feeling  on  every  page  of  the  book  ;  prick  it  and  it 
bleeds."— Daily  Chronicle. 

"The  'Dance  at  the  Phoenix'  is  perhaps  the  most  striking, 
full  as  it  is  of  Mr.  Hardy's  bitter  humour  and  his  relentless 
handling  of  the  irony  of  human  fortunes.  It  is  just  the  touch 
of  sardonic  comedy,  however,  which  gives  the  poem  its  dis- 
tinction, and  justifies  its  form." — Literature. 

"  Sad  and  strange." — Pall  Mall  Gazette. 

"A  remarkable  book — one  of  the  most  remarkable  contribu- 
tions made  to  our  poetry  for  many  days.  The  originality  never 
stands  in  doubt." — Speaker. 

"  Mr.  Hardy  has  something  to  say  ;  and  in  some  lyrics  sheer 
closeness  of  thought  and  feeling  seems  to  make  violent  seizure 
of  poetry.  Such  a  compelling  hand  is  laid  on  her  in  the 
following  verses." — Academy. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  REVIEWS— Continued 

"  There  are  certain  things  which  stand  out  unmistakably,  not 
from  their  fellows  merely,  but  from  the  ruck  of  modern  verse 
as  a  whole.  .  .  .  Mr.  Hardy's  small  cluster  of  really  remarkable 
poems." — Athenceum. 

"Something  original,  personal,  intimate,  rinding  expression 
in  a  manner  that  thrills  and  touches." —  Westminster  Gazette. 

"  Such  pieces  as  '  The  Temporary  the  All '  and  '  Unknowing ' 
are  examples,  of  which  there  are  many  others  here,  of  a  perfect 
poetic  conception  enshrined  in  a  perfect  poetic  form;  while 
in  '  The  Peasant's  Confession,'  '  The  Dance  at  the  Phoenix,' 
(  Leipzig,'  and  other  similar  pieces,  we  see  how  admirably 
Mr.  Hardy  can  tell  a  story  in  verse."—  Christian  World. 


U  DAY  USE 

F    -M 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


GCT  1°  '67  -*>  PM 

,FBlb'68-4PM 

IIIM  3    1969 

tJU  1      *•  c.   V  »       ij  \    ifi 

OUW    ** 

, 

NOV2719B/    8 
RECEIVEO 

yrui  1  -7  »r>*?    -^  rMj 

NUVl  j  67  -5PM 

t^^.      *      «L 

' 

DEC  12  1987 

S^  C^  p*  f*  t  \  i  c*  rx 

*" 

RECEIVED 

ND\/28'6/-yAN| 

LOAN  DEPT. 


131968 


YC177281 


'    *. 


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J  V 


